You’re lying in the dentist’s chair, waiting to find out what work you need done. The door opens. Seconds are a long as hours as you wait in anticipation. He’s walking in the room in slow motion. He looks at his clipboard and frowns. He tells you that he’s going to need to drill. Your breath stops, and you feel your whole world falling apart. You can’t imagine the pain you’ll be feeling.
Pain? You don’t know pain.
In many prehistoric cultures, the drill was replaced with a scorching hot piece of bark or twig. This was the last resort after living with the excruciating pain of neglected dental disease. And instead of morphine or laughing gas, you got nothing and liked it. At least this is what the evidence at an archeological site in Northwestern America would suggest. The find in question was a fifty-year old female from 1090 BP of high social status.
Her jaw was exceptionally diseased with several periodontal abscesses, an inflammation that causes extreme pain to the tooth. Dental diseases are not uncommon to many prehistoric cultures, so this in itself is not spectacular. What is interesting is the fact that the teeth are discolored dark brown to black, consistent with burning. What’s even more interesting is that the only teeth that are burned are the teeth that are severely abscessed. And the most interesting thing is that this means she voluntarily let a piece of bark or twig heated in excess of 200 degrees Celsius stay in her mouth long enough to burn away the enamel and turn her teeth black.
It is said by the scientists involved with this study that it is unthinkable for a human being to willingly subject themselves to that sort of dental therapy. At the first glance, I would more than willingly agree with them. But one must keep in mind that different cultures have different practices and strengths. What may seem like torture to one culture could be therapeutic to another. Our modern day medicines have lengthened our lives but weakened our bodies to endure the hardships that were once not even a scratch.
The process may have had a symbolic meaning as well. Fire has always had significance in every culture. It warms the cold, it destroys, and it enables us to eat. Heat is a common form of pain relief, not just in these prehistoric cultures, but our own as well. A warm compress could be good for what ails you with a stiff neck. Hot chicken soup always makes you feel better, but the same can’t be said for cold soup. There is something relieving about heat that these cultures recognized. If heat could relieve everyday pains, why wouldn’t it relieve the pain from these dental diseases?
I’m not suggesting that the next time you have a toothache you stick a flaming branch in your mouth. We probably couldn’t take that sort of therapy in our modern age of pills and drills. We have the technology and medical practices to make our problems go away quickly and painlessly. Or at least relatively so. While this has been a blessing, it also means that were we to try burning our problems away as this ancient culture did, we would probably die or be driven mad from the pain.
So the next time you go to the dentist, wear a smile. Your teeth aren’t ravaged with disease. And when he tells you he’ll need to drill, don’t be afraid. Remember, it could be a whole lot worse.