Exploring oral paleopathology in the Central Andes: A review

This targeted review of oral paleopathology in the Central Andes explores research that focuses on a set of interrelated, multifactorial processes: dental caries, macrowear, alveolar abscess, antemortem tooth loss (AMTL), periodontal disease, and the presence of dental calculus. These conditions help characterize oral health because they result from the culturally mediated interaction of individuals' oral cavity with their external environment. To better understand how osteologists working in the Central Andes have interpreted the frequencies of these conditions, I review the etiology of each, as well as discuss the important issues in their analyses. I then highlight studies that integrate of a number of oral paleopathological conditions, that examine associations between oral conditions and other skeletal indicators of health, or that use multivariate statistical techniques to analyze conditions. In the Central Andes, these proxies for oral health have generally focused on several key research themes including the introduction of domesticated foods may have occurred earlier than expected, but that populations may have maintained mixed subsistence strategies for a significant period. Researchers have also identified that changes accompanying Inca imperialism were likely not as detrimental to local populations as was Spanish colonialism. Finally, the long-practiced, culturally important, activity of chewing coca has been shown to create an identifiable pattern of oral paleopathological conditions.

[Healing Dental and Oral Problems by Remedies of Animal and of Human Origin]

Use of matierials of animal or human origin in dentistry (and generally in medicine) these days is regarded as an unusal way of intervention. However in earlier times, different tissues, parts, products and organs of animals were frequently used in healing. Some of these methods were rooted in magical thinking. As analogical treatments--based on similarity or analogy--e.g. powder of horn or teeth of pike was used for the treatment of decayed teeth and different worms, maggots, veenies were applied against "toothworm". By difficult eruption of primary teeth bone marrow or brain mixed with cockridge-blood and goatmilk was a widely used medicine. Butter and honey were able to help the growing of teeth, as well. Parts of frog (fe: flippers) were also components of curing materials. Egg as the symbol of life was often an ingredient of medicaments. For the treatment of inflamed gum different animal materials were used, like chin and teeth of wolf, pike, crayfish, milk, honey, human saliva etc. Animal or human stools, mucks (containing enzymes) did one's bit in healing of oral and dental illnesses and were applied as fomentation or swathing. Placing a leech on the inflamed face was a common procedure in the past even as the use of earwax in lipnook. In our days tissues, parts or products of animals (or human beings) usually never allowed to get into contact with the body of patients. It's a much safer routine, at the same time however a precious traditional knowledge vanishes forever.

Oral surgery during Byzantine times

The Byzantine World covers the eleven-century period between 323-1453 AD and was characterized by a comprehensive system of medicine based on the fundamental principles of Ancient Greek medicine. Several clinical entities, such as epulis, parulis, constrictions of the tongue (short frenum), sublingual ranula, jaws fractures and disclocations, oral fistulae were well-known and treated during the Byzantine period with primarily surgical, but also non-surgical, interventions. Tooth extractions and operations on the uvula were also popular. The variety of these operations, for which special dental instruments were used, demonstrates the high level of surgical knowledge among physicians in Byzantine times.

Experimental encounters: Filipino and Hawaiian bodies in the U.S. imperial invention of odontoclasia, 1928-1946

Through extensive dietary and dental surveys among infants and children living in Hawai'i starting in the late 1920s, medical researchers transformed immigrant and indigenous children's mouths into objects of pathological comparison, establishing sites of alternative empirical and epistemological contact that are endemic to U.S. Pacific empire. These studies resulted in the extension of odontoclasia, a veterinary diagnosis, from dogs to humans. As a dietary antidote, researchers recommended the wider consumption of poi, a starchy Hawaiian staple. Although this appears to be a novel endorsement of indigenous foodways predating contemporary activist efforts to reinstate traditional food cultures to support indigenous health, narrow technocratic specificity and the biomedical emphasis on the cultural rather than structural etiology of odontoclasia marginalized Hawaiian health by reducing morbidity to failures to conform to U.S. imperial modernity, which included industrial medical surveillance on plantations. Conversely, doctors credited plantations for saving Filipinos through successful imperial and hygienic assimilation.

Lorenz Heister and oral disease with the original text from his papers

Lorenz Heister (1683-1758) was the major academic surgeon of the eighteenth century. He served as an army surgeon in a number of campaigns and eventually became the professor of anatomy and surgery at Altdorf University. In 1739, he published a comprehensive book on surgery that became the standard text on the subject. It was widely reprinted and translated into many languages. The English version was the first systematic treatise on surgery to appear in that language. The book has many chapters devoted to diseases of the mouth and their treatment.

Cranio-maxillofacial surgery in Corpus Hippocraticum

INTRODUCTION

Knowledge of the medical thoughts and practice through the ages constitutes a particular qualification for every practicing physician and surgeon, in order to become a participant of Medicine's continuity and a conscientious practitioner. Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery constitutes a significant part of the surgical writings of Corpus Hippocraticum.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

The original texts of the Hippocratic Collection written in ancient Greek, as they were published along with a translation into modern Greek in G. Pournaropoulos 'Hippocrates' Works', (edited by A. Martinos), Athens 1968, were studied for any account referring to Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.

RESULTS

The medical views and opinions of Hippocrates regarding Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery and Pathology in particular, as well as Dental Medicine in general, are disseminated in the various books of Corpus Hippocraticum, and although they are almost 3000 years old, they are still in line with current thinking to a great extent. The scope of Hippocratic perspicacity and experience regarding Oral and Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery includes dentoalveolar surgery, orofacial infections, maxillofacial trauma, dentofacial abnormalities and orthognathic surgery, as well as cranio-maxillofacial injuries.

CONCLUSION

Corpus Hippocraticum in spite of time remains a unique and unrivalled work, where one can realize the power of observation, sagacity and the clinical judgement of Hippocrates regarding every aspect of Medicine, and in particular Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery.

[Mining and dentistry]

Major Norwegian 19th-century mines had their own company physicians. Some of their reports and the mine sick-lists have been kept. From the Modum Blue Colour Works we have more than 80 such reports or sick-lists (each covering a four-week mining period) from 1823 to 1839. Of a total of 8,798 patients, 67 (0.8%) were diagnosed as suffering from odontalgia. The treatment was extraction or medication. Patients who underwent tooth extraction had fewer subsequent sick-days than those who were only given medication. Other registrated dental or oral disorders included dental abscess, caries, dental cancer with growth on the gums, thrush, dentition, dental fever and scorbutus.

The folklore in your mouth

Ancient folklore about our detentions contained some incredible notions about the number and nature of teeth and their care. Many modern myths remain, however.

Hippocrates and the mouth

Hippocrates as a central figure of Greek Medicine of the Golden Age stands ipso jure first among equals with Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Phidias, Praxiteles and all of the other great men who are to this very day considered by the true rulers, philosophers, writers, artists and generally all civilized men as Great Teachers.

Research revisited: Gunnar Rølla's contribution to oral health

Gunnar Rølla's contributions to oral science cover an enormous range. They include research into the basic understanding of pellicle and plaque formation, to mechanisms for the prevention of oral diseases. Rølla has collaborated with over 100 persons from many different countries and thus his influence on dental research has been global.

Palatine torus in the Greenlandic Norse

Physical anthropologists have long been intrigued by the distinctive oral tori expressed by the medieval Norse populations of Iceland and Greenland. To assess the temporal and spatial variation of one form of oral tori, palatine torus, observations were made on all available Greenlandic Norse skeletons, as well as on samples of medieval Icelanders and Norwegians. In terms of temporal variation, 12th to 14th century (medieval) Greenlanders from the Eastern and Western settlements exhibited higher frequencies and more pronounced expressions of palatine torus compared with early 11th century Greenlanders. The early Greenlandic sample closely approximated the medieval Icelandic and Norwegian samples for total torus frequency, although the Norwegians exhibited the trait to a less pronounced degree. As degree of expression is the most distinctive aspect of torus variation among the Norse, some combination of environmental factors, including increased masticatory stress and chronic undernutrition, probably accounts for most of the difference between settlement period and medieval Greenlanders. Although palatine torus may be hereditary in part, environmental factors play a significant role in the expression of this trait.

The ancient origins of oral pathology

Belief in a golden age has provided mankind with solace in times of despair and with élan during the expansive periods of history. Dreamers imagine the golden age in the remote past, in paradise lost, free from toil and grief. Optimists put their faith in the future and believe that mankind, Prometheus-like, will master the arts of life through power and knowledge. Thus, the golden age means different things to different men, but the very belief in its existence implies the conviction that perfect health and happiness are birthrights of men. Yet, in reality, complete freedom from disease and from struggle is almost incompatible with the process of living.