REX Dentistry has such a gruesome history that even having dental work today causes concern

For our ancestors however a bad case of toothache could be precisely that. The profession was a back-street horror show for hundreds of years, run by ham-fisted amateurs who were sure to leave their patients in agony – if they survived. Extraction was almost the only treatment available for toothache until the middle of the 19th century. Tens of thousands of people died from botched treatment, infections and other complications so it was hardly surprising that the dentist’s chair was regarded with sheer terror. If you were lucky there might be a tot of whisky to numb the pain but otherwise all that was offered was a prayer. “For most of our history a visit to the dentist was a nightmare,” says historian Professor Joanna Bourke, who presents a new documentary on the subject. “Agonising toothache, horrifying extractions and barbaric tools have cast a large shadow over our dental past.” Until relatively recently rotten and neglected teeth were part of daily life. Proper dentists didn’t exist until the 1800s and prior to that the care of the nation’s mouths was in the hands of blacksmiths and barbers who doubled as surgeons. They wielded pliers for pulling teeth or devices resembling bottle openers which relied on the hapless patient’s jaw for leverage.

Agonising toothache, horrifying extractions and barbaric tools have cast a large shadow over our dental past Professor Joanna Bourke

In 1665, the year of the Great Plague, it is estimated that one in ten other deaths in London were linked to toothache. Fraudsters seized their opportunity by offering useless quack cures. For many years it was believed that toothache was caused by a worm burrowing in the jaw. However in the late 18th century more efforts were made to understand dentistry. In 1771 John Hunter, a failed doctor, published his ground-breaking book titled Natural History Of The Human Teeth. He suggested a scientific approach and devised names for all the teeth, which are still used today. He made exquisitely detailed drawings showing the interior of the mouth and roots of teeth, which were used for teaching. Yet not all his pioneering ideas, which included a recommendation to clean teeth regularly and the impact of diet, have stood the test of time. He also proposed transplanting teeth from the living and the dead and it became a craze. The rich paid the poor to give up their pearly whites but with them came a risk of infection and disease.