Dental Caries in the Second Millennium

Abstract

This historical review of dental caries diagnosis and management is based on information obtained from reports published between 1839 and 1965 and forty textbooks on caries diagnosis and management published since the nineteenth century. The history of understanding of any disease or condition in humans has passed through two distinct eras. The first, which lasted until the twentieth century and may still be ongoing today, is the "observational" era. The second, which has developed and revolutionized our understanding of the causes and treatments of all diseases, is the "scientific" era. During the observational era, treatments of oral or dental problems were based on neither biological nor scientific principles. Rather, experimentation without validation was, and to a lesser extent during the last fifty years is still, common. In terms of disease management, dental practice is still in the gray years of the "restorative era" and in the midst of the "preventive era" where the emphasis would soon shift towards early detection of biological markers of diseases and prevention of their initiation and progression. This review has found that most contemporary questions on caries diagnosis and management have been debated since the middle of the nineteenth century. There is a need for a comprehensive research program to provide scientifically based information to assist dental practitioners in caries detection, diagnosis, and management.

The use and repair of dental amalgam restorations as practised in South Africa

“…4,5 This includes strategies that curb the disease process and conserve tooth structure. Traditional curative treatment of dental caries has dominated in countries such the United States of America, 6,7 although in some regions such as Scandinavia, a more preventative approach has been adopted. 2 Once sound tooth structure is destroyed through the caries process, there is an ongoing lifelong cycle of repair and maintenance.…”

Lessons from mercury dental amalgam phase down for developing economies

“…This is the so called 'surgical' or 'engineering' approach to caries management. Some have also attributed this approach to the historical emergence of dentistry [9][10][11] from surgery The end result of this approach to caries management is the eventual loss of the tooth 12 (the 'restorative cycle spiral') . This "engineering" or "surgical' approach was not th without some caution from 3 leading lights of 20 century caries management.…”

Periodontal disease in the Neolithic Jomon: inter-site comparisons of inland and coastal areas in central Honshu, Japan

“…Cases of oral paleopathology, including periodontal disease and dental caries, increased after the cultivation of crops began in the Neolithic period (Aufderheide et al, 1998). Furthermore, more cases have been reported since the Industrial Revolution, especially during the periods and in the areas where the refined wheat and sugar-rich food supply increased (Ismail et al, 2001). Recent DNA analysis of dental calculus has successfully recovered intraoral bacteria from ancient human bones, revealing a change in the constitution of oral bacterial in Europe from the Mesolithic to the present (Adler et al, 2013).…”