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Mankind has always had teeth. It would not be wrong to conclude that people have always had dental problems of one nature or another. In fact, accounts of the earliest dental problems such as premature loss of teeth, toothaches and tooth decay have been chronicled from time to time.
This has been recorded in the manuscripts of ancient civilizations of China as well as Egypt. The Ebers papyrus is a compilation of ancient Egyptian medical text that has the first recorded dentist and doctor for the treatment of dental problems. Needless to say, dental problems and their treatment have been in existence ever since.
How did it all begin? It all began with the development of teeth in the oral cavity. How did we evolve teeth? The first multi-cellular organisms had their food by surrounding their food with their membranes. Later on, they developed a slit or a gut, with tentacles and feelers that helped these organisms to absorb food.
Later on, animals began living on land and developed bone and muscle. As life evolved, it was much later that the primates known as Catarrhine Apes developed a set of full fledged teeth.
Some time after that fire was discovered and with it the diet and food habits of humans advanced. They were not only able to have cooked fish and meat, fruits and nuts, they were also able to grow their own food such as rice, wheat, maize and pulses. With a change in food habit there were dental problems. These have been mentioned in the Egyptian and the Chinese records.
Toothache and sore gums were the most commonly reported of ailments in those times. In fact, the Chinese prepared a list of nine dental ailments around 3000 years ago. Fossils of skulls petrified in rocks point towards tooth decay.
Though men have advanced rapidly since that age, their tooth problems are a legacy that they will always remain. Today, almost half of the human population suffers from tooth ailment of one kind or the other. Though they have developed in intelligence, it seems that mankind’s habits have still remained the same.
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