Struggles of Relieving Medieval Tooth Aches and Decay

About two months ago, in my small town of south-central Pennsylvania, people gathered for a municipal board hearing to debate whether we should stop putting fluoride in our public water supply as a preventative measure against tooth decay. Loads of scientific evidence is easily available for the critical reader to make up her mind on this issue, but missing in much of the discussion is a perspective from a Medieval historian. Allow me to remedy this situation. Here in this first image, we see a man grimacing in pain atop a 13th-century capital at Wells Cathedral in England. The toothache he experiences would have found recognizable sympathy from all onlookers, because tooth pain was ubiquitous and difficult to heal. Many Medieval medical textbooks gave treatments for the excruciating suffering caused by toothache, but the misidentification of the cause of the pain gets across its exquisite sharpness. The presumed culprit? The “tooth-worm.” As the third image (18th century) demonstrates, the idea that teeth could get infested with parasitic worms that would eat into the gums was held for a very long time. People from the Ancient Mediterranean, Asia and South-East Asia, and Central America really believed that worms caused the pain of toothache. Getting rid of them might entail herbs, prayers, charms, and smoke treatment. My favorite cure comes from the first-century Ancient Roman Pliny the Elder, who advises the victims of tooth pain to get a frog (during the full moon, of course), and spit into the creature’s mouth while proclaiming “Frog, go, and take my toothache with thee!” That would show ’em. Frogs and charms would seem to not be as effective as fluoride in stopping tooth pain. However, if any modern sufferers would like to revisit a Medieval treatment, they can always pray to Saint Apollonia, a third-century Christian martyr (shown in the image from a 15th-c. Manuscript) who had all her teeth knocked out by her oppressors. She became the patron saint of toothache — her holiday is February 7.

 

Errata: there is no fourth image, and the third image claims to be an 18th c Ottoman book, but it is from Almay stock photo and I couldn’t get a MS identification.