The popular image of the teeth of a mediaeval peasant is a semi toothless rotting mess. Though undoubtedly I can believe some were like that (just as many are today) I don’t believe it was that bad for everyone, and most people had a lot more presentable teeth than most people think.
Oral care seems to have been taken reasonably seriously by most people, and there were many natural remedies that everybody, of all stations in life, had access to.
Sure, they didn’t have George Clooney and Scarlett Johansson perfection, but was it really as bad as some people claim?
Bear in mind that in those days one of the principle ingredients in stone ground flow was stone, or at least stone particles. A lot of abrasive found its way into the bread, and that can’t be good for teeth.
I took one of the best classes ever in college called Bones Bodies and Disease taught by an expert on South American mummies. The classroom was built specifically for the class and had shelves upon shelves of all the complete parts of skeletons that we had to diagnose for our tests in real time. The dental problems weren’t usually severe and often not bad at all. We leaned that primitive people had diets that constantly polished their teeth and prevented cavities (dental carries).
The main lecture about that illustrated why that was suggested that refined sugar that I believe was added to the diet starting in the 14th century caused a rapid decline in overall dental health. This continued until the early twentieth century at least in the U.S. when modern dentistry products and procedures began to to remedy the situation.
In short, dental health wasn’t so bad in ancient days and then it took a huge hit and then improved again.
One of my Microbiology books (Tortora) says the exact same thing with regards to dental caries - it was the addition of refined sugar that ruined everyone’s teeth. As evidence, they said that ancient skeletons actually had pretty healthy teeth. But a lot more people died of tooth abscesses back then too, so I guess there’s always something…
If you ever go to the Cahokia Mounds site, which I recommend, you can see skulls of pre-Columbian Native Americans with some seriously screwed-up teeth due to the bits of stone in their food.
I’ll note, semi-tangentally, that if you go to a country with a fairly modern diet and no dental care, the effects are pretty obvious and fairly well unanimous. Any Japanese people over the age of 35 or so are rather scary, mouthwise (I believe that dental plans have been introduced in Japanese companies, saving the younger people.)
She must have been in her 90’s at least when that photo was taken - for her to have any teeth at all suggests her dental health was pretty good. Don’t confuse dental health with Hollywood perfection. Her teeth were a bit uneven, and not brilliant white, but that’s all.
While we are predisposed to think that abrasive material in food is bad and wears out one’s teeth, it ain’t necessarily so. The abrasive material in stone-ground flour acted like Simoniz for teeth in older times. It polished away decay before it had a chance to spread.
One of the topics I teach my advanced students involves skeletal remains. Adult skeletons from ancient times do not show a huge amount of tooth loss or decay. They also don’t display the effects of bleaching or orthodontia, but that isn’t what we’re talking about.
Where I lived in Cameroon, dental care was pretty scarce. There was a man who came around once a year to yank rotten teeth. People were more into chewing on sticks and rubbing with cloth than brushing with toothpaste. The diet was nearly completely free of processed food- soda might be a treat you’d get a few times a year. I don’t think it was too far off of what dental health was like back in the day.
And it was a real mixed bag. Half of the people had amazing, perfect, brilliantly white teeth. Absolutely perfect teeth, better than most Americans. The other half had the worst teeth I’ve ever seen- I’m talking 20 year olds with nothing but rotted through stumps.
Dunno what the difference was. Most people ate a pretty similar diet- which did have some abrasive elements (rough millet paste with some kind of soft rock ground in with it and no small amount of sand.)
Can’t things like enamel strength, saliva content and levels of stomach acid be genetic? What other genetic factors might affect teeth? (not a question for even sven, just a general question based on her observations)
