Dental pain and suffering prior to the advent of modern dentistry.

In Prehistoric and Mediaeval times few dentitions in this country remained intact much after the age of 40-45 years. The point is made that dental caries and periodontal disease played little part in this early disintegration and it is unlikely that the population of this time suffered severely with their teeth. A change in dietary habits in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century measurably increased the lifespan of the dentition, but also radically altered the prevalence of caries. This change is likely to have been responsible for a vast increase in dentally-related pain and suffering which was only capable of being tackled as a social problem by the advent of modern dentistry.