In Britain, dental ailments were being treated as far back as the Roman occupation (55BC—
410AD). While surgeries did take place during these times, they weren’t very elaborate.
Surgeries consisted of extraction and pulling teeth.
Basically dental treatment in Britain didn’t begin until the 14th century due to lack of knowledge
on the subject as well as lack of medicine and technologies
Prior to anesthetics, Dentists used to dress up in off costumes and have themselves accompanied
by musicians in order to drown out the screams of their patients. Another reason they would
dress up and play music was to distract the patients because the extractions and other surgeries
were extremely painful.
(DENTISTRY--HISTORY)
A very popular anesthetic is Lidocane, which consists of sedative, analgesic and cardiac
depressant properties, applied topically in the form of the base of hydrochloride salt as a local
anesthetic.
Another popular and affective anesthetic is bupivacaine, which is a long-acting local anesthetic
used in regional anesthesia.
In long lasting surgeries, Dentists often use nerve blocks, which (as the name explains) block a
nerve from any pain or feeling for that matter. There are many nerve blocks that Dentists use in
this day in age, such as anterior superior alveolar nerve block, which numbs the pulp inside the
incisors and canine teeth and the inside of the cheek on one side of the upper jaw. Other Nerve
blocks include: Middle superior alveolar nerve block, nasoalatine nerve block, infraorbital nerve
block, ½ nerve block, Inferior alveolar nerve block, Lingual nerve block, Buccal nerve block,
and the Mental nerve block.
Nerve blocks and anesthetics are vital to oral surgery because without them, a patient would be
able to feel everything that happens during a long lasting surgery, which would result in extreme
pain or even much worse.
(Rinzler 14)
There are 55 fully accredited dental schools in the United States and Canada. While requirements
for entry in a dental school vary, these few things are vital to acceptance: Your application, your
transcripts from colleges and universities, Dental Admission Test (DAT) scores, personal essay,
and letters of recommendation will be carefully examined to determine your potential to become
a dentist.
These are vital to college entry, but there are a few characteristics that dental schools search for
pervious to entry, such as the ability to do the course work and clinical work. A great deal of
time, effort, and school resources is put into each student. If the student consistently fails courses
and needs extra years to complete his or her training, more money and resources are being used.
(Carla S. Rogers 7)
Dentistry is approximately 100 years old. Prior to the 1900s, people addressed dental issues as
they arose.
(Kendall 14)
Just like today, Dental training was extremely costly and time consuming. The “Father of dental
hygiene” (otherwise known as Dr. Alfred Fones) had to train his office assistant for this exact
reason. In 1913, five thousand dollars was used to start an education of dentistry for the lack of
men and women in the field. By the end of the training program, 10 hygienists were hired in the
city of Bridgeport.
(Kendall 15)
The first formal dental school in not only the United States, but in the world was the Baltimore
College of dental surgery. This college opened in 1840. Training at this college consisted of two
full courses of lectures for fourth months, in addition to performing dental operations and
preparing and setting artificial teeth. Students were also required to write a thesis on some aspect
of dentistry. If the faculty members found the student candidates competent after examination,
they were awarded the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery, the first use of the now-familiar
D.D.S
(Kendall 13)
Dentistry is mainly concerned with tooth decay, disease of the supporting structures, such as the
gums, and faulty positioning of the teeth. Like medicine and surgery, it is practiced in specialized
fields: oral surgery, orthodontics (corrective dentistry), periodontics (diseases of the gums),
prosthodontics (partial or total tooth replacement), endodontics (treatment of dental pulp
chamber and canals), and pedodontics (dental problems of children).
As dentistry progressed, the center of accomplishment shifted from Europe to the United States.
The first dental school in the world was established in Baltimore in 1840. The development of
local and general anesthesia, the invention of the drilling machine, discovery of better substances
for filling teeth (amalgam and gold), and, most importantly, the ability to devise replacements
closely approximating natural teeth in function and appearance contributed much to the rapid
growth of dentistry as a science and an art. Adding fluoride to the local water supply
(fluoridation) has made teeth more resistant to cavities; annual applications of fluoride and clear
liquid plastic to children's teeth also make them more decay resistant.
(Middle search plus)
Extraction is a Dental procedure to remove a tooth, usually recommended when a tooth is so
badly damaged that it cannot be repaired. Removing even one tooth can allow shifting of
adjoining teeth, leading to MALOCCLUSION, so dentists normally recommend extraction only
for:
-
A tooth so badly broken or decayed that it cannot be repaired
A tooth whose nerve is damaged but which is not considered suitable for endodontic (root
canal) surgery because the tooth structure itself is too fragile
One or more teeth loosened by periodontal disease that they cannot be made stable
An impacted wisdom tooth (a tooth set in the jaw in a position that makes it impossible
for the tooth to erupt the gum)
A tooth on the top or lower jaw that has no opposing tooth and will eventually move out
of the jaw
A tooth or teeth that crowd the jaw, push other teeth out of line, and will interfere with
orthodontic treatment (a dental procedure in straighten and realign the teeth)
Extractions can be very painful the procedure is basically pulling out a tooth, whether it is
broken or submerged into the gum. Wisdom teeth extractions can be especially painful being that
Dentists have to literally cut the teeth out while the patient is under a certain type of anesthesia to
numb the patient’s mouth.
Healing for an extraction can take up to two weeks (or longer if the surgery is not successful or a
dry socket (The condition that occurs when the blood clot at the site of an extraction, such as the
removal of a wisdom tooth, is dislodged) occurs.
(Rinzler 55)
Bone is made up of various types of tissue. The top layer is dense and hard material known as the
cortical bone (or compact bone), the second layer (only in a couple of bones) hold an elastic
material that is known as the cancellous bone. The center of the bone contains a soft tissue (bone
marrow).