Although cariogenic foods par excellence, such as sugary drinks and sticky sweets, have appeared in the diet of man only in recent times, historical findings clearly indicate that caries has always been a problem for human beings.
Undoubtedly, the diet of our ancestors - much poorer and full of foods that required a strong chewing - was in a certain sense a protective factor, so much so that until a few decades ago caries raged above all in the mouth of the nobles. For the same reasons, however, the problem of dental wear was much more widespread.
Signs of caries have also been found in Egyptian mummies and even earlier in the fossil findings of Homo rhodesiensis . Also skull teeth found in Portugal, at Murene, and dating back to the Mesolithic, show results of carious processes.
A Babylonian tablet dating back to 1800 BC reports the famous legend of the tooth worm, held responsible for tooth decay. It is said that a hungry worm born in the mud had implored the gods to grant him a place among the teeth of man, where food residues abound. After obtaining the divine permission, the worm began to dig tunnels and caverns, giving life to what we now call caries.
Once the enemy was identified, picturesque solutions were not lacking to try to kill him; at that time, the belief of the toothworm had spread almost everywhere and to try to kill it, medicated pastes based on plant extracts, animal parts and mineral substances were used. For example, grains of salt and pepper were placed in direct contact with the carious cavity, but also cloves, poisonous herbs such as giusquiamo and poisons such as arsenic. After "disinfection" resins were used to close the cavity.
Although there is no definite evidence about it, some scholars believe that the practice of clogging teeth using gold mixed with pulverized sandalwood was widespread among the Egyptians; certainly, in those days it was common to apply gold dental ornaments and real artificial teeth (of wood or gold) in the mummification practices of authoritative people.
The Greek doctor Galen (129-199 AD) proposed the use of an infusion of oregano and arsenic in oil, to be placed in the carious cavity which was then closed with wax.
During the Middle Ages caries became easy, as medical and religious influences discouraged personal hygiene. Suffice it to say that the Sun King "lost" his teeth completely at a young age due to tooth decay, and did not make more than two baths in his entire life. Merchants and charlatans in the square therefore had an easy game to sell at great cost the most disparate remedies for caries, such as snake scales, hare brains, animal hairs and so on. During that period, however, there were doctors with the most rational approach to dental pathologies, whose theories and solutions began to find broad consensus in the Renaissance.
The hypothesis of the caries worm resisted until the advent of the microscope, to be definitively abandoned at the end of the 18th century. At the beginning of the 19th century the first amalgams for fillings were developed, while only at the beginning of the 20th century was the modern theory developed according to which caries is the fruit of the damaging insult, on tooth enamel, of the acids produced by metabolism bacterial of sugars.
