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I remember being struck by the fact that most people had teeth go bad and basically rot in place. If you lived near someone with skills they'd grab it with tong
by jbattle 7y ago
I remember being struck by the fact that most people had teeth go bad and basically rot in place. If you lived near someone with skills they'd grab it with tongs and rip it out, no anesthesia. And this was probably an almost universal experience (for those that lived long enough)
- wil421 7y agoThere are some YouTube videos and mini-documentaries of Indian street dentists who have been working for generations. It’s probably as close as we can get to viewing the 1800s or earlier practices.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- fromthestart 7y agoI don't know that I can find any sources to cite but I once wrote some code for an anthropologist analyzing prehistoric tooth scans, and he mentioned that modern dental carries are substantially more common now than they were in the past because acid producing bacteria thrive on refined sugars that weren't used in modern quantities until fairly recent history.
- equalunique 7y ago>acid producing bacteria thrive on refined sugars The way my dentist put it, and it's stuck with me, is: Tooth decay is caused by the bacteria in your mouth eating sugar and peeing acid.