Of Caveman & Cavities: Prehistoric Dentistry and No Insurance!

I spend a lot of extra-curricular time at seminars and reading publications to constantly stay on top of the latest in dentistry. I am likewise fascinated by dental history and stumbled upon a book that contained some facts I thought you’d find interesting.

Prehistoric man was spared the misery of tooth decay, apparently because he didn’t have refined sugar in his diet. However, if he came down with a painful toothache, the treatment of the day was to place a piece of wood against the offending tooth and strike it with a rock or hard object. Considering how painful that must have been for the patient, I can’t imagine the “dentist” back then being anybody’s friend. Of course, he also didn’t have to process insurance claims either, so I won’t feel too bad for him.

Moving ahead to early civilization, a person’s income level could be determined by the state of their teeth. What surprised me, however, was to learn that the richer the individual, the poorer the state of his teeth. I presume the reason was that the wealthy had access to sugar, while the poor did not and probably ate unprocessed, organic foods. Today, that situation is reversed and low income individuals typically have poor dental health, due to diets of over-processed foods and sugar. More affluent individuals can afford organic, unprocessed foods and so have healthier teeth.

Romans equated healthy teeth with healing powers. These gleaming pearls symbolized immortality, vitality and even were used in the practice of magic. Here is the first sign also of teeth being described in poetry as assets to a woman’s beauty.

Earlier than medieval times, it is said that priests not only tended to the issues of one’s afterlife, but also assumed the role of healers (talk about multi-tasking!) Dental “treatment” consisted of incantations, prayers and amulets to bring about cures.

Little is really known of dental history, so who knows how much of this is actually true. All I know is that while I’ve never been inclined to say a chant before treating a patient, I often tell a corny joke.

The question of the day was “how could it be that a seemingly indestructible body part, such as a tooth, was the cause of such pain?” Practitioners back then narrowed the source down to three possible causes: demons, worms or “humors,” better known as body fluids.

You would be asked if evil spirits had been sent upon you. Did you have an enemy who could have cast a spell? A second possible cause was also investigated: did you have maggot-like worms in your teeth? Or, were your body fluids were unbalanced? The order in which these “causes” were investigated is uncertain, so perhaps it was up to the leanings of the practitioner. Some things never change.

The “treatment” for the causes explained above were so brutal, they sometimes resulted in death. And, I’m nearly certain that no insurance company would have paid their claims.