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The idea of a tooth worm is a theory of the cause of dental caries, periodontitis and toothaches. Once widespread, the belief is now obsolete, having been superseded by more scientific rationales. It was supposed that the disease was caused by small worms resident within the tooth, eating it away. [1]
During the European Age of Enlightenment, the belief that a "tooth worm" caused caries was also no longer accepted in the European medical community. [169] Pierre Fauchard, known as the father of modern dentistry, was one of the first to reject the idea that worms caused tooth decay and noted that sugar was detrimental to the teeth and gingiva ...
Typically, a parent may take a sick child to a traditional healer, who will look in the child's mouth and attribute the illness to "tooth worms".The healer will point out the small, white, developing tooth buds as being "tooth worms", and then dig the "worms" out of the gums without local anesthesia and using a non-sterile tool (normally a bicycle spoke). [2]
An ancient Sumerian text describes a "tooth worm" as the cause of dental caries. [41] Evidence of this belief has also been found in ancient India, Egypt, Japan, and China. The legend of the worm is also found in the Homeric Hymns, [42] and as late as the 14th century AD the surgeon Guy de Chauliac still promoted the belief that worms cause ...
Scientists are rejoicing over the recent discovery of the first mummified saber-tooth cub in the history of paleontology. A team of paleontologists discovered a frozen mummy cub in northeast ...
The belief that tooth decay and dental pain is caused by tooth worms is found in ancient India, Egypt, Japan, and China, [9] and persists until the Age of Enlightenment. Although toothache is an ancient problem, [55]: 48–52 it is thought that ancient people suffered less dental decay due to a lack of refined sugars in their diet.
Gongylonema pulchrum was first named and presented with its own species by Molin in 1857. The first reported case was in 1850 by Dr. Joseph Leidy, when he identified a worm "obtained from the mouth of a child" from the Philadelphia Academy (however, an earlier case may have been treated in patient Elizabeth Livingstone in the seventeenth century [2]).
In his work Natural History, the 1st-century Roman writer Pliny the Elder discussed therapies for tooth pain. He described various concoctions such as the ashes of burned earthworms , ashes of burned mice mixed with fenned roots and honey , sparrow feces wrapped in wool ; snakeskin mixed with oil , resin , and pitch-pine and then poured into an ...