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Dentistry sure has come a long way since the dark ages! Back in about 300 B.C. ancient dentists were building dental bridges to replace missing teeth and holding them in place with brass bands. These days, modern dentistry allows us to replace missing teeth with a simple dental implant procedure.
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Dark Ages Dentist
The Dark Ages of Dentistry must be where people’s overwhelming fear of the dentist originates. In this depiction of a dentist extracting a patient’s tooth, we can see that the patient is clearly in distress. Keep in mind that back then, there was no novocaine, no laughing gas, no anesthesia of any type to alleviate dental pain. Patient’s will occasionally tell us stories of having a tooth extracted in their past. “He had his knee up on my chest”, they say.
In all my years’ experience in oral surgery and dental extractions, I have never seen a dentist remove a tooth in that manner. The patient’s telling us these stories must have seen this picture! Dentists in the 1700’s recommended using “soot” to clean teeth.
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Laughing Gas
With the invention of nitrous oxide sedation, “laughing gas”, we could finally have dental procedures and tooth extractions without pain. It didn’t take long for doctors to realize that you had to mix the nitrous oxide with oxygen to prevent serious complications with your patient! Some patients loved laughing gas so much that they wrote popular songs about it. Nitrous oxide was invented in 1794 by Thomas Beddoes and James Watt. It began being used for dentistry in 1844.
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He fixed his teeth, alright!
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.Dentists and dental products have been popular in advertising for as long as advertising has existed. The gentleman in this advertisement for Dr. Shiffman looks really happy to have a big, gaping hole where his tooth use to be. I guess this dentist didn’t know about implant dentistry! Dental implants in one form or another have been found throughout ancient history. Ancient Egyptian mummies have actually been found with functioning dental implants in their jawbones!