Dental 4 Less – How caries treatment in the past was done
A large proportion of people in the countries where sucrose became widely available developed rapidly-advancing dental caries which began in the tooth enamel. For reasons that we now understand well, these individuals experienced pain, severe localized infection within relatively dense bone and then systemic illness. Suddenly, a disease which could be extremely painful and even deadly became common in children and young adults. When the epidemic began no-one understood its cause. All that people could do at the time was treat its consequences.
Treatment was by surgery, usually by extracting the tooth, and was very difficult for the surgeon (and very painful for the patient). Surgeons were not particularly admired at the time, because their work was crude, painful and often failed. A new type of surgeon, the dental surgeon, was needed. The dental profession began as a group of people who were also not very admired, but were very much needed.