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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 Once widespread, the belief is now obsolete, having been superseded by more scientific rationales.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]
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]
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 ...
Pierre Fauchard (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ foʃaʁ]; 2 January 1679 – 21 March 1761) [1] was a French physician, credited as being the "father of modern dentistry". [2] He is widely known for writing the first complete scientific description of dentistry, Le Chirurgien Dentiste ("The Surgeon Dentist"), published in 1728. [2]
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]).
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Fossil findings of juvenile placoderms, which had true teeth that grew on the surface of the jawbone and had no roots, making them impossible to replace or regrow as they broke or wore down as they grew older, proves the common ancestor of all gnathostomes had teeth and place the origin of teeth along with, or soon after, the evolution of jaws.