In Phoeniciania and Ancient Greece, tooth extraction was considered a dangerous operation, so before resorting to it, the healers used a variety of tools from which the teeth fell out themselves. If, however, they had to be torn, it was most often done with their hands. Dental forceps, according to historians, were used only at the end of the first millennium. Their invention is attributed to the god of medicine Esculapus.
Neither was the removal of teeth from the ancient Jews, who believed that this could lead to inflammation of the eyes. But toothache was above religious rules, it was equated to a threat to life, and although the Bible strictly forbade Jews to work on Saturday, the ban did not apply to doctors if a person with toothache approached them. The special damage to the teeth was such a serious misdemeanor that the gentleman who accidentally knocked out his slave's tooth had to give him freedom. There are known methods of dental treatment in Ancient Egypt, where, as the study of mummies showed, the services of dentists needed very urgently. Some of the methods of dentistry are given in the famous ancient Egyptian medical treatise, known as the Ebers papyrus (in truth, the German Egyptologist and writer George Ebers, who first published it in 1875).
It is believed that it is a list from the manual of medicine, compiled in the first half of the lll millennium BC. This means that even then, the Egyptians knew that the teeth can be treated not only by sacrificing the goddess Mountain of fatty rams, but also with special pastes and ointments.
The Ebers papyrus describes eleven different recipes for making up "medicines for the teeth", relieving pain, reducing inflammation of the gums (in modern terminology, periodontal disease and periodontal disease) and improving the mouth cavity. One of these recipes recommended that one part of caraway, one part of myrrh and one part of onions should be hibernated for the preparation of medicinal paste. To relieve toothache, the juice of acidic fruits, garlic, was also used by the ancient Jews (a similar medicine in the Middle East to this day).
The high level of dentistry in Egypt is also evidenced by archaeological finds of the jaws with round holes in the roots of the teeth, drilled to remove pus or inflammation. This was done by specialists. Not only the name of the Egyptian dentist, Hessi-Ra, but even his portrait, preserved on a wooden panel from a tomb near Sakkara, has reached us.
Imhotep was also a skilled doctor, whose name translates as "Come with the world". He was born into a family of commoners, but thanks to many talents he became the high priest and vizier of Pharaoh Joser (about 2780-2760 BC). Imhotep was also a skilled physician, astronomer, poet, and philologist who perfected hieroglyphic writing. Later he was honored with deification, became the son of the god Ptah and was revered as a god of healing. The Greeks identified Imhotep with Asclepius.
Compared to Mesopotamian, Chinese or Egyptian written sources, the first Greek descriptions of dental diseases and their treatment are quite late. The works of Hippocrates (5th century B.C.) give advice on caring for children with teeth that have teeth cut through, and for the first time introduce the concept of "afta", which means "ulcer", "rash", "burning feeling". According to Hippocrates' descriptions, the "afterthought" was often found in children's mouths. Later, the Roman physician of Greek origin Galen (129 - about 200 years of the new era) and the great medieval physician Avicenna, the author of the encyclopedic work "The Book of Healing", written in Arabic, also described. And the ancient practical advice on the treatment of fractures in the jaw, as noted by researchers, are of interest even for modern maxillofacial surgery.
Apparently, doctors in Greece, and then in ancient Rome, were able to provide a variety of dental care. Roman scientist-encyclopedist Celsius in the book "About medicine" (I century of the new era) has singled out diseases of the mouth cavity in an independent chapter, and advised not to rush with the removal of a patient's tooth, and to treat it with a rinse or fumigation. He used decoctions for mouthwash when inflaming the soft tissues of the teeth, and externally - poultices of dough and dates that caused pus outflow. He was able to open abscesses and scrape the affected bone by cutting down the edges of carious teeth with files.
A new stage in dentistry began when the Roman surgeon Arhigen, the medical officer of the Emperor Trajan (1st century A.D.) described the signs of pulpitis and invented a special drill to penetrate the tooth cavity. Unfortunately, this, undoubtedly, effective method of dental treatment was long forgotten only in the XV century, a professor at Bologna and Padua universities Giovanni Arkolani managed to apply the method of Archigen and described it in his work "Practical Surgery".