Visiting the dentist was, literally, a pain in the backside; cures for toothache include drinking laxatives, or bleeding in the foot. If the tooth is rotten ‘it will be best to burn the nervous cord which is the seat of the pain with a cautery; and then the cavity may be filled up with a mixture of wax and maslich’. Or, the French way was to fill the hole with another human/animal tooth of the right size.