The Egyptians

As long as 4600 years ago in Egypt, physicians began to specialize in healing certain parts of the body. A physician named Hesi-Re was the earliest dentist whose name is known. He practiced about 3000 BC and was called “Chief of the Toothers and the Physicians.” Three teeth fastened together with gold wire, apparently an early fixed bridge, were found with the remains of an Egyptian who lived about 3100 BC.

A radiograph of the skull of Thuya, mother-in-law of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, showed bone loss in her jaws, an indication of periodontal disease. Some dental problems have been attributed to the Egyptian diet, which was primarily vegetarian. Grain was ground with stone pestles, which mixed sand and grit into the food, resulting in severe wear of the occlusal (biting) tooth surfaces and exposure of the pulp.

The Greeks

During the fifth century BC in Greece, the practice of medicine and dentistry was based on the worship practices of the priesthood. Priests would give patients a sleeping potion and perform healing rituals. During this period, Hippocrates (460–377 BC) began to outline a rational approach to treating patients. He suggested that four main fluids in the body—blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm—along with heat, cold, dry air, and wet air, must remain in balance, or disease would occur. His approach to treatment of patients earned him the title “Father of Medicine.”

Hippocrates stressed the importance of keeping the teeth in good condition. His writings described the teeth, their formation, and their eruption, as well as diseases of the teeth and methods of treatment. He also developed a dentifrice and mouthwash. The famous Hippocratic Oath, a solemn obligation to refrain from wrongdoing and to treat patients with confidentiality and to the best of one’s ability, still serves as the basis of the code of ethics for medical and dental professions.

Aristotle (384–322 BC), the great philosopher, referred to teeth in many of his writings. However, he mistakenly stated that the gingiva was responsible for tooth formation, and that men had 32 teeth and women had only 30. Many of his erroneous ideas were not corrected until the Renaissance.

Diocles of Carystus, an Athenian physician of Aristotle’s time, recommended rubbing the gums and teeth with bare fingers and “finely pulverized mint” to remove adherent food particles. Other materials used to clean the teeth included pumice, talc, emery, ground alabaster, coral powder, and iron rust.

The Chinese

By 2000 BC, the Chinese were practicing dentistry. They used arsenic to treat decayed teeth. This probably relieved the toothache. About the second century AD, the Chinese developed a silver amalgam paste for fillings, more than a thousand years before dentists in the West used a similar substance. In the eleventh century, T’ing To-t’ung and Yu Shu described the entire process of chewing and swallowing. Their description of the process was accurate, but they were incorrect about what happened to the food when it reached the stomach. They believed that digestion was a result of vapors arising from the spleen.

The Romans

When the medical profession in Rome was just beginning, dentistry was already being practiced. Several Roman physicians wrote extensively about dental treatment, although many people still believed that a “toothworm” was responsible for toothaches. In addition to extracting teeth, the Romans were skilled in restoring decayed teeth with gold crowns and replacing missing teeth by means of fixed bridgework.

The Romans had a high regard for oral hygiene and developed tooth-cleaning powders made from eggshells, bones, and oyster shells mixed with honey. Dinner guests of upper-class Romans picked their teeth between courses with elaborately decorated toothpicks of metal, often gold, and were invited to take their gold toothpicks home as gifts.

Cornelius Celsus (25 BC–50 AD) wrote De Medicina, />