Having to go to the dentist is as appealing as a colonoscopy. More often than not, it triggers anxiety and fear in the patient. The following 10 stories focus on historical, intriguing, and downright bizarre facts pertaining to the respected profession of dentistry.

10 Honest Abe’s Chloroform

Abraham Lincoln had terrible dental anxiety rooted in a faulty tooth extraction in 1841 that resulted in part of his jawbone breaking off. The 16th US president endured such pain without anesthesia.

Thus, when a severe toothache came calling years later, he wasn’t the slightest bit amused. Reaching into his pocket, Lincoln withdrew a bottle of chloroform, inhaled it, and nodded for the procedure to begin as he gently slipped away into unconsciousness.

The use of chloroform as an anesthetic was not known at the time, leaving many to ponder how Lincoln knew of its properties. These days, the sitting president doesn’t have to travel far to take care of unexpected tooth ailments because Herbert Hoover established a dental office in the subbasement of the White House.

9 Burning Flesh And Arsenic

As far back as 2700 BC, the Chinese were using acupuncture to assuage the pain of tooth extractions, decay, gingivitis, stomatitis, and glossitis with 116 points on the surface of the body believed to be directly linked to teeth and other oral structures.

Moxibustion, a technique that involves the burning of the herb mugwort, was often used with acupuncture to facilitate healing. Once the mugwort was aged, the herb was ground up and formed into a stick that was lit on one end and usually burned onto the patient’s skin.

This practice was believed to produce analgesia in addition to strengthening the blood, stimulating life energy, and maintaining one’s overall health. By the second century AD, the Chinese began using arsenic to treat decaying teeth, a practiced believed to kill the tooth’s pulp while simultaneously relieving one’s pain.

8 Painless Parker

In the early 20th century, Edgar Parker found a way to allay the fears of his patients through unconventional methods of distraction. Following a decline in business, he toured the US in a horse-drawn wagon, bringing with him a flock of showgirls, nurses, and buglers.

In every new town, Parker drew an audience with his colorful theatrics while simultaneously pulling teeth and offering patients whiskey and cocaine-based hydrocaine. In time, he adopted the name “Painless Parker” and wore a necklace of 357 teeth.

He claimed to have pulled them in a single day, much to the disdain of The American Dental Association. They declared that Parker was a “menace to the dignity of the profession.”

To elude lawsuits for false advertisement, Parker legally changed his name from “Edgar” to “Painless.” His theatrics were ultimately a financial success. He retired with $3 million.

7 A Flourishing Practice

Alberto Nunez, a 32-year-old Chicago resident, had a thriving dental practice for over two years, averaging around 30 patients a week. Due to the high volume of patients, they often had to wait a week before being seated in his dental chair. His future looked promising.

The only problem: Nunez was not a real dentist, and his office was based out of a home.

Following a tip, the Special Operations Unit opened an investigation into Nunez’s fraudulent practice. Posing as a patient, an undercover officer made an appointment and concluded that Nunez had been performing a variety of dental procedures including root canals, dental surgery, bite impressions, cleanings, and braces.

In 2012, Nunez was charged with a Class 4 felony for practicing without a license and a misdemeanor for unlawful possession of hypodermic syringes.

6 Prehistoric Dentistry

The ingenious reasoning of prehistoric people never ceases to amaze scholars, including evidence of tooth drilling performed more than 7,500 years ago in what is now Pakistan. A jawbone discovered in a cave in present-day Slovenia is the earliest evidence of dental fillings, with a lump of beeswax applied to ease the pain from a crack in the enamel.

This form of treatment was practiced in ancient Egypt 2,100 years ago when a young man succumbed to an excruciating sinus infection brought on by numerous dental abscesses.

According to researcher Andrew Wade from the University of Western Ontario, linen was dipped in medicine to ease the patient’s pain and then packed inside the cavity to act as a barrier to food particles. In fact, dentistry was practiced in ancient Egypt dating back to the construction of the pyramids.

5 Glennon Engleman

Glennon Engleman was a respected member of his community with a prominent dental practice. Yet behind closed doors stood a dark and sinister man who compares to society’s most notorious killers. His carnage spanned well over two decades, with various methods of murder ranging from shooting, bludgeoning, and car bombs. He even threw a man down a well with sticks of dynamite to ensure his death.

Although police were certain that Engleman was their man, it took his third wife to seal his fate. Following a night of sex, Engleman bragged to her about how he had murdered countless people and hinted that she might be next. After detectives coerced her to wear a wire, Engleman incriminated himself, bringing an end to the madness that had plagued St. Louis.

In September 1980, Engleman was found guilty for blowing up Sophie Marie Barrera and received two life sentences. Suspected in 12 murders, he confessed to only five. He died in prison at age 71 in 1999.

4 Abrasive Medical Treatments

Contrary to popular belief, George Washington’s dentures were not made of wood but of hippopotamus ivory. They are on display at the National Museum of Dentistry in Baltimore. Though it’s not surprising that Washington’s dental hygiene was substandard—he only had one tooth during his inauguration—many point to his lifetime of poor health as the reason why.

If contracting smallpox wasn’t enough, Washington was plagued throughout his life by ailments such as malaria, dengue fever, rheumatic complaints, and bouts of dysentery. His medical treatments, which included mercurous chloride, were quite abrasive and led to the destruction of tooth enamel and unremitting toothaches.

This led to frequent episodes of inflamed gums and abscessed teeth that required extraction on a yearly basis. In fact, historians believe that dental problems were Washington’s reason for forgoing his second inaugural address.

3 Scavengers

Sugar consumption was on the rise in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as was teeth whitening using acidic solutions. As people’s tooth enamel inevitably wore away, the demand for false teeth grew. Consequently, some of the poorest in society took advantage of the booming market.

Given that dentures with human teeth could fetch well over £100, some poor people resorted to pulling out their teeth in an attempt to sell their crowns to wealthy dental patients. As the number of living donors began to decline, people set their sights on the battlefield at Waterloo where thousands of fallen soldiers remained.

In 1815, surviving troops, locals, and even scavengers who had traveled from Britain began pulling the teeth of the dead to sell them to dental technicians. The teeth were then boiled and shaped prior to being placed on ivory dentures. The UK’s Anatomy Act of 1832, which licensed the movement of human corpses, ultimately reduced the use of human teeth in dentures.

2 Stress Can Kill

According to recent studies in dental literature, dentists are more prone to physical and emotional problems such as alcoholism, drug addiction, marital strife, and suicide. In fact, the suicide rate of dentists is three times higher than that of other white-collar workers and more than twice the rate of the general population.

However, the number one killer of dentists is stress-related cardiovascular disease, with 25 percent more high blood pressure and coronary disease than that of the general population. This begs the question as to why the dental field is more prone to stress, mental problems, and social problems.

Studies indicate that isolation from working alone, compounded by intense competition and economic pressures, inevitably leads to burnout. In turn, dentists become emotionally and mentally exhausted, often developing negative attitudes toward their patients, their staff, and themselves. In addition, working with apprehensive patients evokes physiological stress responses in dentists that lead to early cardiovascular complications.

1 Dr. Hugo Blaschke And Hitler’s Remains

On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide. His body was subsequently burned in a bomb crater in the Reich Chancellery garden, only to be discovered by the Russians three days later. In 1973, his jaw remains were examined by dental experts, bringing an end to much speculation surrounding his demise.

Comparing the remains to dental records provided by Hugo Blaschke, Hitler’s US-trained dentist, was not only informative but pleasurable given the torment that such a vile man had endured.

To say that Hitler had very bad teeth would be an understatement. He was plagued with debilitating gum disease, abscesses, and tooth decay, all resulting from severe periodontal disease that led to painful reconstructions. This was also the cause for Hitler’s “terrible bad breath.”

Adam is just a hubcap trying to hold on in the fast lane.

Have you ever wondered what people did before there were dentists? Tooth decay and pain aren’t a modern problem and have plagued society for thousands of years. It’s no secret that dental pain can be one of the most agonizing miseries one can endure. Thankfully, we have several thousand years of collective knowledge as well as modern medicine to draw upon to make the process of keeping our teeth healthy as pain-free as possible—luxuries which the dentists and, even worse, the patients of old didn’t have.

Even imagining back as recent as more modern times before the use of local anesthetics and powerful painkillers, we can’t help but wince in discomfort at the mere thought of being held down by several people while some doctor of the day reached in with iron tools and ripped one of our teeth out, our mouths pried open with brutish Bronze Age–esque equipment. Here is the horrific history of dentistry in ten parts.

10 Dentistry Is Born

For as much pain and suffering as toothaches can cause, it’s a little surprising that dentists are scarce throughout many massive cultures of the ancient world, even in civilizations where physicians were plentiful. The documented story of dentistry begins with a culture who had rough times and rough diets: the ancient Egyptians.

The Egyptian diet consisted largely of grains and cereal foods, and the ancients didn’t have the quality (or sterile) materials and utensils from which to make breads safely that we do today. Many metals, minerals, and other nasty things found their way into the bread of ancient Egypt, causing tooth decay and a plethora of dental problems. The Egyptians also found it nearly impossible to keep sand out of their food, something that further contributed to the severe health issues of the mouth that were rampant in that time.

The first recorded dentist comes from around 2660 BC and is named Hesyre (also called Hesy-Ra). He was chief of dentists and also the chief physician to the pharoah Djoser.^[1] At this time, most dental work consisted of shoving things into the decayed, chipped, or broken tooth, gum area, or abscess in hopes of easing the pain. These items ranged from honey to herbs and plants to possibly even gold, though it is uncertain if dental procedures using gold as a filling material took place postmortem. Nonetheless, it’s very safe to say that any procedures done in these times were excruciatingly painful.

9 Complexity Begins

Going on the only records we have, it is debated whether or not full-on surgery had taken place yet, or if there were or were not tooth extractions at this point, as evidence is limited among the remains we have. In this early period, we do see three cases of possible prosthetic work—the ancient Egyptians were the first to have gold teeth. They would often drill and use gold wiring, weaving through teeth in complex fashions. This was possibly to hold teeth in place or perhaps cosmetic.^[2]

By 2500 BC, dentistry had given birth to the first instance of what is still considered a nightmarish procedure today: drilling. The evidence of remains from that time period show small holes symmetrically drilled on the outside of a tooth which appear to have been man-made. It seems they’d learned to drill in order to drain the pus and release the pressure of an abscess. Imagining going through this procedure without the luxury of modern medicine is almost unthinkable.

8 The Bow Drill

So how do you drill into someone’s teeth without the aid of modern electricity or finely tuned instruments? Enter the bow drill, a device not unlike a bow for an arrow, only the string is tied around a sharpened spike or stake of bronze. The string would be wound around the spike, and the bow could be moved back and forth, almost like playing a cello, and this would cause the spike to spin.^[3]

This was definitely not a quick or easy process for drilling into someone’s mouth, and by no stretch of the imagination was it comfortable in the slightest. Fortunately, alcohol had been produced in ancient Egypt as early as about 4000 BC. Even with a stiff drink, this procedure was undoubtedly miserable.

7 More Intricate Tools

As Egyptian culture and medicine went on, the need for more precise and intricate tools to solve the pervasive and ubiquitous dental problems in their society became much more prevalent. By at least as far back as 2500 BC, there is evidence of all-out dental surgery, complete with pliers, scalpels, and other tools.

By this time, the Egyptians had the tools and knowledge necessary to carry out many surgeries, up to and including prosthetics, brain surgery, and more. They were certainly drilling into cavities to clean them out and removing teeth that were in bad shape.^[4] From here, dentistry would slowly but surely become more and more complex until it reached the practice that we know and love. Well, maybe not love . . . more like tolerate.

6 The Etruscans

The Etruscans were an Italian civilization which predated the Romans and survived from about 700 until 400 BC, when Rome conquered them, and the Etruscans assimilated into what were the humble beginnings of Rome. They deserve an extremely honorable mention here because of their many innovative contributions to dentistry over the course of their existence. Much of Etruscan culture would be adopted into Roman culture and would survive the course of history due to the later rise of the Roman Empire.

By 700 BC, the Etruscans were already doing complete dental implants, using animal teeth and gold fillings. They even figured out a way to heat and solder metals into exposed nerves and cavities in order to stop the pain of having the pulp and nerve endings of a tooth exposed to the elements and debris.^[5] The Etruscans also used animal teeth and bone to create the first cosmetics, and though they wouldn’t last as long as the prosthetic teeth of today, they were easily attainable and easy to interchange, making this method a viable option until around the 1800s.

While the Etruscans advanced civilization in many great ways, and we will be forever indebted to them, few today would want their teeth soldered together and fused with metal without the aid of modern anesthetics.

5 Ancient Greece

For as advanced of a civilization as ancient Greece was, they were well behind the others when it came to dentistry, which was largely due to their philosophy and warlike nature. Greeks believed strength and beauty to be cardinal virtues, and thus, the pain of a cavity or abscess was a small price to pay to be able to keep a tooth in your mouth. With pain being a sign of weakness, asking a physician to remove a tooth was a surefire way to lose social status.

The best someone suffering from severe tooth pain in ancient Greece could hope for would be to have a cloth, which had absorbed various herbs and such, shoved into the tooth to prevent food from getting inside it. Many people died from infections due to this avoidance of pulling teeth. Most of the time, they’d simply ask the gods to remove their problems and hope for the best.^[6] Great . . . just great.

4 Medieval Dentistry

Believe it or not, the medieval times were a point in history that saw great advancements in the field of dentistry, both in terms of accuracy of knowledge and the tools to fix problems, but one major development was preventative measures: Thus, dental hygiene was born.

While fluoride and alcohol weren’t readily available options like they are today in toothpaste and mouthwash, medieval Europe saw people learning to clean their teeth and remove all sorts of undesirables from their mouths by wiping their teeth with cleaning cloths. This also aided in having good breath. While the extremely high cost of sugar during that period helped the people of the time avoid tooth problems, there were, for the wealthier classes, mouthwashes containing vinegar and other ingredients which would kill bacteria and freshen breath.

In 1158, Hildegarde of Bingen recommended:

One who wishes to have hard, healthy teeth should take pure, cold water into his mouth in the morning, when he gets out of bed. He should hold it for a little while in his mouth so that the mucus around his teeth become soft, and so this water might wash his teeth. If he does this often, the mucus around his teeth will not increase, and his teeth will remain healthy. Since the mucus adheres to the teeth during sleep, when the person rises from sleep he should clean them with cold water, which cleans teeth better than warm water. Warm water makes them more fragile.^[7]

By the middle ages, preventative dental care was in full swing, with great attention to the various ways one could keep one’s teeth in both good health and good looks.

3 The Birth Of Tooth Whitening

We often hear and think of modern society as shallow and superficial, only caring about outward appearances rather than depth and character. If that’s the case, we’re hardly alone in history. Medieval cultures were obsessed with the cleanliness of their teeth, and whitening was a big part of dental hygiene and care during that period. Many brews and concoctions would be assembled, sold, and implemented as part of a regimen to keep teeth sparkly white, just as we see the slew of products advertising the same results on infomercials and in dentists’ offices today. De Ornatu Mulierum, a text written in the 11th century by Trotula de Ruggiero that translates to About Women’s Cosmetics, reads:

The teeth are whitened thus. Take burnt white marble and burnt date pits and white natron, a red tile, salt, and pumice. From all of these make a powder in which damp wool has been wrapped in a fine linen cloth. Rub the teeth inside and out.

The woman should wash her mouth after dinner with very good wine. Then she ought to dry very well and wipe with a new white cloth. Finally, let her chew each day fennel or lovage or parsley, which is better to chew because it gives off a good smell and cleans good gums and makes the teeth very white.^[8]

2 Toward The World Of Dentures

As time went on, preventative dental care and extractions weren’t enough. World trade and global commerce made sugars much, much more affordable for the average person to eat, and many of the poor were still plagued by malnutrition, which caused tooth and bone decay. While replacement teeth had been a staple since the Etruscans, full sets of bridges and dentures were inevitable in the course of dental history.

By the 14th and 15th centuries, dentists were already cosmetic surgeons capable of sculpting bridges and full denture sets. How did they do this? By fashioning the bones of cows into a shape that closely resembled teeth and fusing them into the mouths of the poor patients who needed dentures. They would wire them in with gold wiring to hold them in place, and if the dentures were knocked loose, they would simply fuse them again with gold wire.^[9] It’s safe to say that this process involved “sewing” this gold wire into the gums, jaws, or both. No thanks.

1 Dentures From The Dead

Organ donation had to start somewhere, and when it came to getting dentures, the choice between having teeth and being pain-free or not having teeth and being in absolute agony was kind of a no-brainer. Fashioning teeth out of cow bones, however, was a process carried out by specialists that not everyone could afford.

When looking around for surplus materials to use as false teeth, one solution, disturbing as it may be, stands out as an obvious choice: the teeth of the dead. Medieval people would often just take the teeth of corpses (which, in medieval times, were absolutely plentiful). Sometimes, the teeth would be pulled from several bodies to get a more comfortable match in creating false teeth for the suffering patient. How morbid is that?^[10]

I like to write about philosophy, history, the macabre, dark, and horrific aspects of human reality and the world.

Dentistry is a modern field of medicine. While it has always existed in one form or another, it was largely unregulated in the past, and all sorts of people devised weird and often bogus procedures and treatments for tooth care and dental problems. At one time, barbers were the de facto dentists.

Some treatments did work, amazingly, like using urine as mouthwash. But we are unsure whether dead mice actually cured toothaches. Nevertheless, the history of dentistry is disgusting and interesting. Here are ten facts about it.

10 Ancient Romans Used Urine As Mouthwash

Ancient Romans used human and animal urine as mouthwash. Employing urine for mouthwash and other uses was so common and normal that the Romans often left pots in public areas so passersby could urinate. The government also had its sights on the trade and taxed urine collectors and sellers.

While it sounds disgusting, the urine mouthwash actually worked. This is because urine contains ammonia, the active ingredient used in today’s household cleaners. A Roman man named Egnatius had teeth so white that he smiled at every opportunity he got. A poet called Cattulus even grew so tired of Egnatius’s smiling that he wrote a poem rebuking him for it.

The displeased Cattulus noted that Egnatius smiled in court, even when the judgment was unfavorable to the defendant. He also smiled at funerals while everyone else was mourning. Cattulus wrote that the excessive smiling was a disease and suggested that Egnatius stop smiling excessively because “there’s nothing more foolish than foolishly smiling.”^[1]

9 Dentures Were Made From Real Teeth

Today’s dentures are made of artificial materials. A few centuries ago, however, dentures were fashioned from real teeth. In 2016, Italian researchers excavating a tomb in Lucca, Italy, found a five-tooth denture made from the teeth of different people.

The teeth were joined together by a wire made from a mixture of gold, silver, and copper. Researchers suggested the denture was made between the 14th and 17th centuries. Similar dentures have been found in Egypt. We also know that the ancient Etruscans and Romans made dentures from the teeth of other people.

Dentures became more common around the 1400s. Poor people sold their teeth those who needed them. Grave robbers often raided graves to remove teeth from dead people.

Demand for human teeth rose after the deadly Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815. Locals, soldiers, and scavengers scoured the battlefield to remove teeth from dead soldiers. Most teeth were removed except the molars, which were difficult to extract and turn into dentures. The teeth were sent to Britain, where they sold for a fortune.

These teeth were called “Waterloo teeth.” The name was later used for any teeth removed from the remains of dead soldiers on battlefields. This also happened during the Crimean War and the US Civil War. Despite their popularity, real human teeth didn’t necessarily make good dentures because they could rot and didn’t always fit well.^[2]

8 Ancient Toothpaste

The first toothbrushes appeared between 3500 and 3000 BC, when the Egyptians and Babylonians brushed their teeth with the frayed ends of twigs. Interestingly, toothpaste was invented about two millennia before the toothbrush. It is believed that ancient Egyptians made the first toothpaste around 5000 BC.

Ancient Romans, Greek, Chinese, and Indians also used toothpaste. However, it was unregulated, and everyone seemed to use whatever they thought worked. Burned eggshells and the ashes of burned ox hooves were regular ingredients in early toothpastes. People living around volcanoes also added pumice.

The Greeks and Romans added bones and oyster shell into their toothpastes. The Romans also added charcoal, bark, and flavoring. By the 1800s, toothpaste contained soap and later chalk. Soap remained an active ingredient in toothpaste until 1945, when it was replaced with several ingredients, including sodium lauryl sulfate.^[3]

7 Barbers Used To Be Dentists

Until a few centuries ago, you could visit your barber for an haircut and maybe a tooth extraction or even surgery—all inside the barbershop. This was because barbers doubled as dentists and surgeons.

Barbers did so because they often had the sharp equipment needed for surgeries and tooth extractions. Physicians of the day also considered surgery beneath them and left it for the barbers. The barbers later took on the name barber-surgeon to better advertise their craft.

The barbers did not call themselves barber-surgeon-dentists, though, because dentistry was an afterthought. The barbers were often unconcerned with preventing tooth decay and other things dentists do today and only concentrated on removing decayed teeth. Dentistry itself was not well-established. All three professions finally split in the 1800s.^[4]

6 Nobody Brushed Their Teeth For Thousands Of Years

Not brushing your teeth is one of the quickest ways to lose your teeth. So it’s surprising that people had excellent teeth thousands of years ago, even though they probably never brushed throughout their lifetime.

Our ancestors were able to maintain healthy teeth without brushing because of their diet. They ate natural, unprocessed foods free of artificially added chemicals and preservatives. Their foods were also rich in vitamins and nutrients, which are often stripped off during processing today. Our ancestors also ate lots of fibrous foods, which cleared bacteria and food debris off their teeth.^[5]

5 Fillings Possibly Caused Teeth To Explode

A 19th-century dentist in Pennsylvania saw three strange cases of exploding teeth during his career. The first incident came in 1817, when the tooth of a priest called Reverend D.A. exploded right inside his mouth.

Reverend D.A. suffered a severe toothache before the explosion. The pain got so unbearable that he reportedly put his head under a fence amid his agony. The pain continued until the next morning, when the tooth suddenly cracked and exploded. The pain disappeared immediately, and he went to sleep.

The dentist reported another incident 13 years later, when the tooth of one Mrs. Letitia D. exploded after a severe toothache. The tooth of Mrs. Anna P.A. also exploded in 1855.

A more extreme case came in 1871, when another dentist reported a tooth explosion in an unnamed woman. The explosion was so loud that she fell and went deaf for a few days. More explosions were reported until the 1920s, after which there are no more reports.

Researchers believe the explosions were caused by the alloys used for fillings at the time. Early dentists created the alloys by mixing metals like lead, silver, and tin. These metals may have reacted and created an electrochemical cell inside the tooth, effectively turning it into a small battery.

Hydrogen is often a byproduct of such reactions. However, it could not escape and just built up inside the tooth. Researchers believe the hydrogen exploded after the metals created a spark, or the clients smoked a cigarette. Some researchers doubt this theory since there’s no evidence that the affected people had fillings.^[6]

4 Black, Rotting Teeth Were Considered Fashionable In England

During the Tudor era, sugar was popular but expensive in England, making it the exclusive province of the rich. The upper class added sugar to vegetables, fruits, drugs, and almost everything they ingested.

As a result, the rich soon started to suffer from tooth decay. This included Queen Elizabeth, known for her rotten teeth. Records show that she had to have a tooth extracted; visiting foreign ambassadors complained of finding her speech difficult to understand.

There are claims that Queen Elizabeth’s dental problems were probably exaggerated, as she only had one tooth removed. While her tooth decay probably was exaggerated, she was also said to be terrified of dentistry, which could be why only one tooth was ever extracted. A bishop once had one of his own teeth pulled to prove to her that the pain could be endured.

Regardless of how bad Elizabeth’s teeth may have been, rotting, black teeth became so common among the rich that it became a status symbol. The poor soon started to blacken their teeth because they wanted people to think they were rich.^[7]

3 Black Teeth Were Also Considered Fashionable In Japan

Black teeth were fashionable outside Britain, too. Unlike Britain, where sugar was the culprit, people in other parts of Asia and South America deliberately blackened their teeth with dye. Tooth-blackening was common in ancient Japan, where it was called Ohaguro.

Ohaguro reached its height between the eighth and 12th centuries. It was common among the aristocrats, who were fond of painting their faces white. A white face made their teeth look yellow, so they dyed them black. The samurai also dyed their teeth to prove their loyalty to their master.

People dyed their teeth with a concoction of black dye, which they drank over several days. The concoction was notoriously bitter, and they often added spices to improve the taste. The practice was soon picked up by the lower class. It was banned in 1870 during reforms to make Japan a modern nation.

Ohaguro was so common that there is even a folktale about a beautiful woman called Ohaguro Bettari (“nothing but blackened teeth”). Her face was featureless except for her blackened teeth and wide mouth. She often called at men from afar and scared them with her featureless face and blackened teeth when they got close.^[8]

2 Dead Mice To Treat Toothaches

A toothache is certainly one of the more unpleasant ailments out there, and people have been enduring them since ancient times. The ancient Egyptians used dead mice to treat toothaches. They ground the mouse up before mixing it with several ingredients. The resulting solution was applied to the toothache.

On another note, the Elizabethans, who we know were no strangers to tooth problems, seemed to consider dead mice a wonder drug of some sort because they also used them to treat several ailments, including whooping cough, smallpox, and bed-wetting. When they weren’t thinking of what next to cure with mice, they used them as an ingredient in their pies.^[9]

1 The Dental Pelican

The dental pelican is one apparatus that has thankfully been removed from dental offices. Nobody would visit a dentist if it was still around today. The device and its use were painful and often damaged the gums and neighboring teeth. Patients often ended up with serious bleeding and disfigured jaws.

The dental pelican got its name from the claw part of it supposedly resembling a pelican’s beak. It was invented in the 1300s and is considered one of the earliest devices for tooth extraction. It appeared in different designs, but they all worked the same way.

The extraction was done by barbers, as mentioned. The patient sat on a low chair with the barber behind. Then the patient’s head was tilted backward and secured in between the barber’s thighs. The claw of the device was then fixed around the tooth to be removed.

The barber started to pull the tooth until it was finally out. Injuries were unpreventable, even if the barber was very careful. Unfortunately, patients had no choice but to endure the pelican because it was the only way they could get their decayed tooth removed.^[10]