A Brief History of Dental Advances
It’s hard to get on board with discount dental plans when the thought of dentistry is so daunting. But here is some food for thought on the advances made in this all-important field… When people think of the tools of dentistry today they think of lasers, high speed drills, VELscopes, Intraoral cameras and nitrous oxide. However, as pervasive as these tools are for today’s dentist, one should remember that they did not come into being overnight; our ancient ancestors who feared the dentists, as many in the modern age still do, were not comforted by general and local anesthetics, accurate x-rays and highly specialized drills. They did have something to fear when going to the dentists.
Today, everyone who visits a dentist – and all o
f us will at some point – should have an appreciation of just how far dentistry has come since its beginnings. From as long ago as Ancient Greece, Hippocrates and Aristotle wrote about dentistry. They refer to extracting teeth with forceps, and using wires to stabilize loose teeth and fractured jaws. From that time mankind eventually developed things like the dental foot engine (1790), amalgam fillings (1800s) and x-rays (1895), which made dentistry more precise.
In 1905, to the relief of patients, Alfred Einhorn, a German chemist, formulated the local anesthetic procain, which is known today as Novocain. This and the publication of the first dental journals helped dentistry join in the technological advancements made in other fields. With journals, dentists could better communicate with each other regarding treatments and advancements. Skip, forward to today where dentistry is a field as vibrant and rapidly changing as any other. With the use of discount dental plans patients have access to these technologies. Affordable dental plans are available that can save and repair teeth with these new tools. Yes, the history of medical advancements has been a long one and we at Family Dental Health Plans are happy to be a small part of that history.