RESUMO
Deaths from dental abscesses today are so rare, that it is difficult to fathom that only 200 years ago, this was a leading cause of death. When the London (England) Bills of Mortality began listing the causes of death in the early 1600's, "teeth" were continually listed as the fifth or sixth leading cause of death. (This does not include the category of "Teething" which was probably erroneously blamed for many children's deaths. As we examine several historic factors of this period, it is apparent that the number of deaths attributed to "teeth" in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was probably fairly accurate, and it was not antibiotics, nor the discovery of asepsis, that brought about the dramatic reduction in these dental mortalities, but two much earlier dental innovations.
Assuntos
Instrumentos Odontológicos/história , Abscesso Periapical/história , Abscesso Periodontal/história , Extração Dentária/história , Anestesia Dentária/história , História do Século XVII , História do Século XVIII , História do Século XIX , Humanos , Abscesso Periapical/mortalidade , Abscesso Periodontal/mortalidade , Odontalgia/históriaRESUMO
A prehistoric Native American mandible from a Fremont site (circa AD 1025) in Colorado has a conical pit in the worn occlusal surface of the lower right canine. Natural causes for this modification are ruled out by the presence of internal striae, a finding confirmed by experimental replication. The canine was artificially drilled before the individual's death and is associated with a periapical abscess. This is one of a very few examples of prehistoric dentistry in the world, and the first from the American Southwest.
