About the only places where medicine or surgery was practiced were monasteries, and monks were aided in their surgical ministrations by the local barbers, who went to the monasteries to cut the monks’ hair and shave the monks’ beards. With the demise of the western Roman Empire about the year 475 ce, medicine in Europe declined into a torpor that would last for almost a thousand years. Extractions were rare and were performed only when a tooth had been loosened. The writings of early Arabic physicians, such as Avicenna and Abū al-Qāsim, show that scaling and cleaning of teeth were practiced. Instead, reliance was placed upon healing through the use of herbs and medicines preventive dentistry through strict adherence to oral hygiene became paramount. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content.īecause of the proscription in the Qurʾan, the sacred scripture of Islam, against mutilating the body, surgery was not practiced in Islamic countries. ![]() Oral medicine was part of the regular medical practice in other early Asian civilizations, such as those in India and Japan. There is evidence that the early Chinese practiced some restorative dentistry as early as the year 200 bce, using silver amalgam as fillings. In the Eastern world, dentistry had a totally different history. The Greeks also practiced some form of oral medicine, including tooth extractions, from the time of Hippocrates, around 400 bce. The Romans, who conquered the Etruscans, adopted Etruscan culture, and dentistry became a regular part of Roman medical practice. Numerous dental bridges and partial dentures of gold have been found in Etruscan tombs, which date to about 500 bce. ![]() True restorative dentistry began with the Etruscans, who lived in the area of what is today central and northern Italy. An early attempt at tooth replacement dates to Phoenicia (modern Lebanon) around 600 bce, where missing teeth were replaced with animal teeth and were bound into place with cord. It is thought that the Egyptians practiced oral surgery perhaps as early as 2500 bce, although evidence for this is minimal. In addition, accounts of dental treatment appear in Egyptian scrolls dating from 1500 bce. Such holes are believed to have been drilled to drain abscesses. For example, Egyptian skulls dating from 2900 to 2750 bce contain evidence of small holes in the jaw in the vicinity of a tooth’s roots. History of dentistry Early dentistryĭentistry, in some form, has been practiced since ancient times. In addition to general practice, dentistry includes many specialties and subspecialties, including orthodontics and dental orthopedics, pediatric dentistry, periodontics, prosthodontics, oral and maxillofacial surgery, oral and maxillofacial pathology, endodontics, public health dentistry, and oral and maxillofacial radiology. Dentistry also encompasses the treatment and correction of malformation of the jaws, misalignment of the teeth, and birth anomalies of the oral cavity such as cleft palate.
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