The Importance Of Dentistry During The Civil War

The variety of dental instruments that have been invented since the beginning of basic dentistry till modern times is enormous. Dentistry has been around since the Ancient Egyptians, the firsts known dentist was Hesy-Re, who has inscribed on one of his tomb walls “the greatest of those who deal with teeth”. Onward from Hesy-Re, the focus on dental health became a concern, however, it was not till about the end of the 1700’s that dentistry was regarded as true profession. Dentistry during the American Civil War was not the initial interest of the time, the focus was of course on the injured men who would come off the battle field. When one thinks of Civil War medicine they may tend to think of amputations and treating bullet wounds. However,

The some of the dental instrument that we use today where also used during the Civil War era. Tooth brushes were not a necessity to soldiers. The Union did not have a dental corps like the Confederacy did, so the Union did not supply their soldiers with toothbrushes. Even though soldiers might not use tooth brushes they did have other ways of attempting to keep their teeth clean. One way of keep their teeth clean was a chewing stick, this method of oral hygiene dates to thousands of years. Its simple using a piece of a tree like bark or a stick to bite on. Since dental hygiene care was not of extreme importance, the number of diseased teeth and extractions that took place was enormous. It was much simpler to just extract the diseased tooth then to try to fix it. Teeth were crucial to a soldier’s daily life, a solider had to have at least six teeth on the top and bottom row of the front of their mouth or else they would not be selected to be in the military. The reasoning behind that was because the men had to tear off the end of a gun powder cartridge to pour into their bayonets during battle; biting the ends off was the fastest way to open them. Even though dental health was not that important, it was a deciding factor in the admission of men into the