# what Could Ancient Dentists Do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 19, 2006, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771 "2006-12-19T13:29:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/1 "2006-12-19T13:29:15Z")
Who were the best dentists of antiquity? I have heard that the Egyptians actually were able to fill decayed teeth (with gold foil), but this doesn’t sound like a repair technique that would last. How about the Romans? I actually wonder how big of a problem dental caries were in the ancient world-refined sugar was expensive and scarce-most likely, people had only honey as a sweetener-and very little of that. Has anyone studied ancient skulls to see how well their teeth lasted? Also, I understand that if you were an ancient Egyptian, your teeth were just about worn out by age 45 or so-flour was milled in Egypt, by mixing sand with the grain-and you were eating sand baked into your bread (which wore your teeth down). As for medieval Europe-did people have any kind of dental hygiene? Once a tooth became decayed, a barber could pull it-other than that, no treatment at all! Still, I don’t think people had a big problem with tooth decay, until refined sugar became cheap and plentiful (by the 1600’s). So, was the ancient world a bad place to be, if you had a toothache? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/2 "2006-12-19T13:37:31Z")
There’s an excellent book called **An Excruciating History of Dentistry** that I gave Pepper Mill for Christmas one year, but neve read myself. Doubtless it can answer many of your questions.: > **[Amazon.com: The Excruciating History of Dentistry: Toothsome Tales & Oral...](https://www.amazon.com/Excruciating-History-Dentistry-Toothsome-Oddities/dp/0312263198)** > > Amazon.com: The Excruciating History of Dentistry: Toothsome Tales & Oral Oddities from Babylon to Braces: 9780312263195: Wynbrandt, James That said, Prehistoric Man had his own problems – even without refined sugar, you can get problems from plaque, or you could be predisposed to have cavities. It wasn’t just Egyptians who ground grain, and grit in the grain is a worldwide issue in abrading teeth. They’ve also found prehistoric molars with odd characteristic wear grooves in them. They finally figured out that these were due to people running tendon material between their teeth to separate single fibers and shape them (tendons were essential for making arrows and spears and the like, and standard prep method was to chew it. suppose running it through tooth grooves followed natually – but it wore down the teeth) Most primitive dental work, I’ll bet, consisted of clever pulling, as you suggest. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/3 "2006-12-19T13:42:39Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] Also, I understand that if you were an ancient Egyptian, your teeth were just about worn out by age 45 or so-flour was milled in Egypt, by mixing sand with the grain-and you were eating sand baked into your bread (which wore your teeth down). [/QUOTE] Cite? [I found this contradiction of that claim:](http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/bread.htm) > [@](#): > > Next, the the whole grain was milled into flour, usually using a flat grinding stone known as a saddle quern. From Neolithic times through the Old Kingdom, these grinding stones were placed on the floor, which made the process difficult. However, tombs scenes of the Middle Kingdom show the querns raised onto platforms, called quern emplacements. Some of these have been excavated at a few New Kingdom sites. They made life much easier, and probably made the work quicker as well. \*\*Modern experimentation with these devices has shown that no grit was required to aid the milling process, as has sometimes been suggested by scholars, \*\* and the the texture of the flour could be precisely controlled by the miller. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/4 "2006-12-19T13:53:55Z")
I don’t recall her name now, but one of Louis XIV’s lovers was famous for her teeth. She kept them longer than most and whiter than most. Only in her dying bed did she confess to washing them every day with her own brush (dentists used a single brush for all their customers) and a mixture of salt and strawberry juice. Washing was seen as a dirty thing to do, y’see. (The people in the movies always have much better hygienic habits than the actual folks of that time did) ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/5 "2006-12-19T14:42:07Z")
It also used to be common knowledge that a woman lost a tooth for every baby - all that calcium has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is you, if you don’t have all the benefits of modern nutrition. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/6 "2006-12-19T14:45:42Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia] It also used to be common knowledge that a woman lost a tooth for every baby - all that calcium has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is you, if you don’t have all the benefits of modern nutrition. [/QUOTE] I saw this mentioned in another thread recently (was that you also?) - but it doesn’t make any sense. How would the body absorb calcium so selectively? Isn’t it more likely that this is just an old wives’ tale, any perceived truth in which is just coincidence of statistics? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/7 "2006-12-19T14:55:28Z")
**Mangetout** , just put the “common knowledge” in commas 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/8 "2006-12-19T14:59:37Z")
I don’t understand… It looks to me as though **Zsofia** is presenting this as folk wisdom with an underlying core of truth. I don’t think it is true at all. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/9 "2006-12-19T15:05:39Z")
I think you’re being wooshed, but it may be me. After all, one of the things I’m sick of is dental workers berating me for smoking and then giving me a double dose for lying about my smoking. It’s common knowledge that if you’ve got yellow teeth it’s because you smoke, they say. And when I say “bistraciclina” they turn into pools of sorry on the floor… but I still want to hit them with something brick-dense and brick-shaped. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/10 "2006-12-19T15:17:01Z")
Alright, **Nava** , you brought it up… what is “bistraciclina”? ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/11 "2006-12-19T15:32:09Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] I saw this mentioned in another thread recently (was that you also?) - but it doesn’t make any sense. How would the body absorb calcium so selectively? Isn’t it more likely that this is just an old wives’ tale, any perceived truth in which is just coincidence of statistics? [/QUOTE] Not that I am in any way defending or refuting this, but I could see how the calcium is not abserbed selectively (of course) but in general and how it often resulted in a tooth lost or two. Women who were constantly having babies would have this problem more seriously than women with fewer. The old saying “Statistically, women of child bearing age show a loss of denture that correlates to 0.87 teeth lost per child birthed” never kinda caught up and we got stuck with a more popular version of it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/12 "2006-12-19T15:42:01Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] Cite? [I found this contradiction of that claim:](http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/bread.htm) [/QUOTE] Sorry, don’t have a cite, but i remember that some ancient egyptian bread, found in a tomb, was analyzed. it contained a lot of silica grit-whether sand was intentionally added 9or just blew in from the desert) wasn’t clear. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/13 "2006-12-19T15:46:33Z")
[QUOTE=Sapo] Not that I am in any way defending or refuting this, but I could see how the calcium is not abserbed selectively (of course) but in general and how it often resulted in a tooth lost or two. Women who were constantly having babies would have this problem more seriously than women with fewer. The old saying “Statistically, women of child bearing age show a loss of denture that correlates to 0.87 teeth lost per child birthed” never kinda caught up and we got stuck with a more popular version of it. 🙂 [/QUOTE] This was more or less the gist of the ‘coincidence of statistics’ thing I mentioned - there are so many other factors involved, I’d be really surprised if any meaningful correlation existed, but we should perhaps start by finding out whether any mechanism actually exists in the human body to reabsorb calcium from teeth. Is there such a thing? (specifically for teeth) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/14 "2006-12-19T16:07:58Z")
[QUOTE=Broomstick] Alright, **Nava** , you brought it up… what is “bistraciclina”? [/QUOTE] One of a group of medicines (tetracyclines) that were great for treating flu but which happened to damage bone. They left a generation of people with yellow teeth that can not be whitened by lasers (since the yellowing isn’t just a dyeing of the outer tooth, but happens throughout the whole skeleton). Once this trend was noticed, they were taken out of the market out of fear that they wouldn’t just make bones yellow but actually weaken them. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/15 "2006-12-19T16:32:37Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] I saw this mentioned in another thread recently (was that you also?) - but it doesn’t make any sense. How would the body absorb calcium so selectively? Isn’t it more likely that this is just an old wives’ tale, any perceived truth in which is just coincidence of statistics? [/QUOTE] Wasn’t me before, I don’t think, but I’ve always read that that’s common knowledge with a core of truth. I mean, not that you’d specifically sacrifice one tooth to each baby, but that having and breastfeeding babies without eating well yourself is bad for your own teeth. ---
**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/16 "2006-12-20T07:38:00Z")
not quite ancient, but in my parents days (30s) it was not uncommon for a 21st present to get a set of false teeth on the understanding that you probably have had most or all of yours pulled out by then due to rampant decay. My guess ancient dentists were good at pulling, and grinding/sharpening teeth and little else ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/17 "2006-12-20T10:57:04Z")
I saw something about a Roman skull where an iron ‘tooth’ had been hammered into the socket. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/18 "2006-12-20T11:01:03Z")
Yo ! I found a cite. [http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba32/ba32news.html](http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba32/ba32news.html) Some way down the page > [@](#): > > Gaulish dentistry > > French archaeologists have discovered the skull of a 1st or 2nd century AD Gaul, at a necropolis near Paris, with a wrought iron tooth hammered into his jaw. The world’s first-known dental implant appears to have integrated solidly into the bone, suggesting that the Gaul survived for at least a year after his operation. The tooth, an upper right molar, appears to have been modelled on the original, according to Eric Crubézy of the University of Toulouse, writing in the latest issue of Nature. > > The oldest-known dental bridge, however, made of gold and designed to replace two incisors, is earlier. It was found in a tomb at Tanagra in Greece, fitted with two loops to connect it to the teeth on either side, and dates from the 3rd century BC. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/19 "2006-12-20T14:20:25Z")
[QUOTE=Sapo] Not that I am in any way defending or refuting this, but I could see how the calcium is not abserbed selectively (of course) but in general and how it often resulted in a tooth lost or two. Women who were constantly having babies would have this problem more seriously than women with fewer. The old saying “Statistically, women of child bearing age show a loss of denture that correlates to 0.87 teeth lost per child birthed” never kinda caught up and we got stuck with a more popular version of it. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Calcium depletion from pregnancy & breastfeeding are more likely to cause bone loss than tooth loss. This source stresses that good calcium intake will usually protect the mother & kid. But teenage mothers, still forming their own bones, are more vulnerable. [www.niams.nih.gov/bone/hi/bone\_pregnancy.htm](http://www.niams.nih.gov/bone/hi/bone_pregnancy.htm) However, pregnancy can affect dental health–& vice versa. > [@](#): > > Women may experience increased gingivitis or pregnancy gingivitis beginning in the second or third month of pregnancy that increases in severity throughout the eighth month. During this time, some women may notice swelling, bleeding, redness or tenderness in the gum tissue… > > Studies have shown a relationship between periodontal disease and pre-term, low-birth-weight babies. Any infection, including periodontal infection, is cause for concern during pregnancy. In fact, pregnant women who have periodontal disease may be seven times more likely to have a baby that is born too early and too small! If you are planning to become pregnant, be sure to include a periodontal evaluation as part of your prenatal care. > **[Gum Disease and Women - American Academy of Periodontology](https://www.perio.org/for-patients/gum-disease-information/gum-disease-and-women/)** > > Gum disease can impact a woman's periodontal health in unique ways. Healthy, full grown women who eat well & have access to good medical & dental care don’t have much to worry about. But, throughout history & in some parts of today’s world\* women start having babies too young, have them every year, may not eat well & rarely see doctors or dentists. Tooth loss is just one of their problems. - That includes parts of the USA, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771/20 "2006-12-20T17:09:18Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] This was more or less the gist of the ‘coincidence of statistics’ thing I mentioned - there are so many other factors involved, I’d be really surprised if any meaningful correlation existed, **but we should perhaps start by finding out whether any mechanism actually exists in the human body to reabsorb calcium from teeth. Is there such a thing?** (specifically for teeth) [/QUOTE] so, does anyone have a good answer to this question? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-ancient-dentists-do/384771.md?page=2)