The Tooth Worms Are Coming
March 27, 2013
While the field of dentistry and medicine have improved in leaps and bounds within the past few decades, people centuries ago viewed something as common as toothaches and other dental conditions as magical and evil to say the least. The dental cures listed in this article may do little to ease your toothache, but it is nice to look back at how society viewed dental conditions and how they tried to address them a thousand years back.
There were drills during the prehistoric times.
If you’re scared of the dental drill now, just think about the amount of fear that prehistoric men who opted for the drill had to overcome some 9,000 years ago. Researchers have recently unearthed some form of contraption which they feel is an ancient dental drill made of very sharp stones. However, despite the fact that these primitive dental procedures were done, gasp, without the use of any anesthesia, the Neolithic dentist was still able to perform these procedures with impressive precision. Talk about skill and high threshold for pain!
Tooth worms are the source of all dental evil.
According to a Sumerian text which dates as early as 5,000 BC, ancient civilizations believed that the cause of all their dental woes was the evil tooth worm which burrowed inside one’s tooth and unleashed all of that pain. What’s amazing is that this theory was actually accepted by society even up to the 18th century.
However, it’s pretty much a known fact that tooth worms are actually dental nerves which have been set off due to the infiltration of pathogens or substances which are part of your diet. Whenever these nerves are set off, they generate an intense amount of pain which radiate from the pulp of the tooth, which is found at the very center of the tooth.
So how did ancient dentists solve the mystery of the tooth worm? Naturally, they sought to remove the tooth worm by extracting the entire tooth; it was the only way that they could remove the worm from inside the tooth. Nowadays, dentists know better, and instead of pulling off the entire tooth altogether, they simply kill the nerves through a process called root canal therapy.
More of those curious cures.
If you want to do as the ancient civilizations did, try using an amulet to get rid of the toothache just like the Egyptians. Or maybe you’d rather chew on hot chilies like the Aztecs. Or if you believe in the powers that be, ask help from your neighborhood sorcerers just like the Medieval people once did.