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Friday, August 8, 2008

Dentistry of the Ancients


"Now, tell me where it feels very, very good."


Early dentistry as practiced in the middle East as shown in the historical XXX film Scheherezade was a far cry from what we know now as dentistry.

As is evident from the vidcap above, the patient was tied naked to the chair. Then the dentist, who was also naked, felt around the patient's mouth with his fingers until he found the sore tooth, generally by being bitten when he touched it.

Once the offending tooth had been located in this manner, the tool known as "Allah's Most Beneficent Tooth Snuffer Outer" was inserted in the victi... er, patient's mouth, and after half an hour or more of sweaty grappling and much screaming in agony and writhing against the ropes, the tooth and often much of the gum and a few non-sore teeth were removed.

This was, believe it or not, a huge advance over other forms of dentistry of the time, which tended to involve rocks and broken jaws.

It is not known why the dentists worked in the nude. Some historians have suggested that it is because it was fun.

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