He writes of a 23-year-old woman left in a “terrible state” by a “barber dentist”.Ha ha! I would also consider myself "uneasy at disappointment" but I'd like to think I'll stop before ripping out half of your maxilla!
“She went to a barber dentist to have the leftmolaris tooth of the upper jaw on the right side taken out,” he says.
“On second attempt he brought away the affected tooth together with a piece of jawbone as big as a walnut and three neighbouring molars.”
He says the “barber dentist” embarked on the ill-fated extraction because he was “uneasy at disappointment”.
Berdmore also possessed a rudimentary understanding of orthodontics, instructing fellow dentists (and barber-dentists) to "Pass gold wire from the neighbouring teeth on either side in such a manner as to press upon what stands out of the line." Either that, or you could try to “break the teeth into order by means of a strong pair of crooked pliers”.
He also observed that sugar and smoking were harmful, and that for this reason peasants suffered less dental disease than their noble counterparts.
Anyway, I just wanted to pass this along as a reminder that dentistry has come a long way and you really don't have a lot to be afraid of (relatively speaking).
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