Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Grim Old Days: James Wynbrandt’s Excruciating History of preindustrial Dentistry

Recommendable! What a horror story!

Tooth extraction was even a method of torture and was performed by kings for this purpose.

"... The first mass-produced bristle toothbrush did not appear until around 1780 in England during that country’s industrialization. Our preindustrial forebears had only a primitive understanding of what was causing their teeth to rot, fall out, and constantly ache. ...

A shockingly pervasive belief present in many cultures around the world was that toothaches were caused by small worms. Numerous surviving Babylonian inscriptions related to toothaches “invoke Ea, god of the abyss, and Anu, god of heaven, to smote the tooth worm.” Fighting the supposed worms infecting everyday people’s teeth was a constant battle. “By about 2250 B.C., physicians were smoking ‘worms’ out of cavities using henbane seed kneaded into beeswax. The mixture was heated on a piece of iron and the smoke directed to the cavity by a funnel.”

Centuries passed with little progress in dental techniques or understanding. A 13th-century manuscript in Old English titled Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft (roughly, “Medicine, Natural Remedies, and Astrology”) suggests a similar technique ..."

Grim Old Days: James Wynbrandt’s Excruciating History of Dentistry "Preindustrial dentistry was rife with bizarre remedies and dangerous techniques."




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