Dental caries

Jan Steen
1626, Leiden - 1679, Leiden, Netherlands ♦ The Traveling Dentist (1651) ♦

A traveling dentist has set up his little business in a Dutch village, where his actions provoke both bewilderment and hilarity among the onlookers.

♦ Diagnosis
Main symptoms: Tooth extraction.
Secondary symptoms: Boy.
Clinical diagnosis: Tooth extraction due to caries.

♦ Definition: caries
A localized, progressive decay of the teeth, beginning with the dissolution of tooth enamel by lactic acid and tartaric acid. The acids are the product of the action of enzymes from bacteria in the mouth on carbohydrates. That initial process is followed by a bacterial invasion of the tooth tubules. The acids formed break down and remove the inorganic particles of enamel and dentin. In this way, the organic tissue of the tooth is gradually undermined, leaving behind the so-called cavities or dental caries.

♦ Discussion
Throughout the 17th century, barbers still provided a wide range of services to their customers. Many touted themselves as particularly skilled at pulling teeth. They went by many names, from Zahnbrecher in Germany, via Cavendenti in Italy, to Arracheur des dents in France. In England, dentists called themselves Operators for the Teeth. Most of these dentists practiced wherever they could find customers.
Marketplaces in cities and villages were the most obvious places where they set up their tables or chairs, with or without a parasol. Some even built a real stage. Others advertised with brightly colored banners featuring images of people suffering from toothaches who had been successfully treated. Still others hired drummers, musicians, jugglers, or magicians to attract the crowd.
The most successful barbers had their own small shops where, judging by the many genre paintings on this subject, quite a few teeth were extracted.
These early dentist-barbers also treated abscesses, filled or filed broken teeth, and performed many other simple dental operations, including scraping and brushing teeth.

The vast majority of itinerant barbers were ignorant and poorly trained. Shameless quacks promised to remove the worms from your teeth (and your entrails at the same time) or to cure your headache by cutting the stones out of your head or an unusually large tooth from your mouth. It was a time of extravagant claims in dentistry as well as in other fields.

Source: Jan Dequeker

Jan Dequeker
The artist and the doctor look at paintings.

Photos
wikimedia.org