Dental History

The history of dentistry is much older than it was earlier assumed.

The cave men in the Stone Age already had “dentists”. The oldest known traces of drilling into teeth has been found in Pakistan.

You have to go back almost 9000 years to see evidence of people who repaired teeth. Despite the fact that they did not have either drilling machines nor metal burs, they still managed to offer a reasonably satisfying treatment.

On a cemetery in the Indus Valley in the south west corner of Pakistan, French scientists from the University of Poitiers, have found eleven different molars that was drilled. They are dated to be 7500 – 9000 years old. While they did not have metal burs, they used flint stone as the head of “the bur”. The result was impressive, despite the primitive tool used. It is assumed that the patient had to suffer a lot during the “treatment”, because there was most likely no anaesthetic methods then.

Tests in modern times demonstrate that the treatment could be over in less than a minute. It is not known if the teeth were awarded fillings, but it is believed that they filled the hole with something like asphalt. This discovery proves that dentistry has existed a lot longer than it was known before.

The oldest known drilled tooth before that was found in Denmark, and it was approx. 5000 years old. We have not learnt of any other methods performed until modern times today.

The most revolutionary is the discovery on how to perform implants. It was the innovative Swedish Dentist Professor Per-Ingvar Brånemark, who solved the problem concerning why the body would not accept implants. The first implant was inserted in September 1965. Since then more than nine million implants has been performed.

The success rate for all implants is over 98%. This proves that the technique used today, is totally accepted by the body. The implant screw is made of Titanium, of which, there are a number of producers today.

The Titanium screw is also used within aesthetic surgery. With the help of skilled technicians a re-build of the face can be performed piece by piece of patients that for one reason or the other may have lost ears, noses, their mouth or teeth.

For those who have suffered such a major accident or illness, their quality of life improves once more.