What did people do with wisdom teeth before modern dentistry?

Removing an impacted wisdom tooth without the patient being numb, without magnification, excellent lighting, and the variety of hand instruments and air-driven devices used in modern dentistry is something I cannot even begin to imagine. read more

Modern humans have much smaller jaws compared to past. When you have larger jaw it will accommodate third molars (wisdom teeth) and they don’t typically give any issues. So yes in the many thousands years ago, wisdom teeth rarely caused any issues. More toward modern era before dentistry people had serious problem due to dental infections. read more

Also, people have been able to pull teeth for a long time. The code of Hammurabi mentions tooth extraction (as a punishment) The biggest advance that came from modern dentistry was actually fixing teeth as opposed to just pulling them out as they went bad. read more

Well before modern dentistry people generally had room in their mouths in the form of missing teeth. Aside from that, they either got you drunk and took them out or, more likely, left them in and you died of infection. read more