Main description:

There can be few things which strike greater dread and terror in the heart than the prospect of a trip to the dentist. Yet given the level of pain, distress and in many cases, outright torture endured by patients in bygone times, we should feel utterly grateful to the modern dentist and the enlightened pioneers of science and invention who paved the way. In From Empirics to a Science, Anthony B. Smithers provides a fascinating account of dental practices and folkloric beliefs throughout the ages and illuminates the innovative, agonizing and frequently ridiculous trial and error journey humankind has travelled in the quest for healthy teeth and painless dentistry. Smithers recreates a vivid landscape of ancient Egyptian practitioners with their amulets, potions and spells and the infamous "barber-surgeons" of the medieval marketplace. He describes the widespread use of leechcraft and bloodletting, the weird and wonderful concoctions for the treatment of "toothworm", not to mention the arbitrary dispensing of toxic and highly addictive painkillers, including laudanum and cocaine, and the indiscriminate use of laughing gas.
We have come a long way from a practice once steeped in superstition, ignorance and quackery and should thank our lucky stars that the fear of death the dentist chair evokes is no longer a literal one!