While I'm dwelling in the past, it's a good time to bring up the history of dentistry. AP Science Writer, Seth Borenstein, reported yesterday that 9,000 year old signs of dentistry were found in a Pakistan graveyard.
Primitive dentists drilled nearly perfect holes into live but undoubtedly unhappy patients between 5500 B.C. and 7000 B.C., an article in Thursday's journal Nature reports. Researchers carbon-dated at least nine skulls with 11 drill holes found in a Pakistan graveyard.
This was no mere tooth tinkering. The drilled teeth found in the graveyard were hard-to-reach molars. And in at least one instance, the ancient dentist managed to drill a hole in the inside back end of a tooth, boring out toward the front of the mouth.
"The holes were so perfect, so nice," said study co-author David Frayer, an anthropology professor at the University of Kansas. "I showed the pictures to my dentist and he thought they were amazing holes."
Researchers figured that a small bow was used to drive the flint drill tips into patients' teeth. Flint drill heads were found on site. So study lead author Roberto Macchiarelli, an anthropology professor at the University of Poitiers, France, and colleagues simulated the technique and drilled through human (but no longer attached) teeth in less than a minute.
They keep talking about how painful it must have been for the patient, which it would have been, except for the fact that alcohol was one of the earliest inventions known to mankind. It's my guess that plenty of whiskey, wine, or beer lubricated the pain centers of the patient's brain before drilling started.
I can't understand why the researchers didn't think of strong drink as a possible anesthetic. It's been in use since well before dentistry.
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