Pierre Fauchard: The Father of Modern Dentistry

Pierre Fauchard is remembered as "the father of modern dentistry” for his efforts to preserve people’s teeth. 

Before Fauchard, dentistry was not an active, medical discipline. Instead of dentists there were tooth pullers, who used tools called “pelicans” to pull teeth out of people's mouths. These tools often pulled out healthy teeth and part of one’s jaw along with the bad tooth. These tooth pullers learned their skill through trial & error.

Then, in 1728, Fauchard wrote & published “The Surgeon Dentist,” which depicted illustrations of dental anatomy, 103 mouth diseases, and surgical tools to use in dental procedures. Many of the ideas he wrote in this book were previously unheard of in medicine. Fauchard also found that kids’ teeth fall out and are replaced, instead of the commonly believed theory that people spontaneously generate new teeth. He also argued that sugar caused tooth decay and motivated people to change their diets. He continued to fight against inexperienced and harmful “dentists” and tooth pullers until his death. Fauchard's work inspired a new generation of dentists in the 18th century who continued to study teeth and diseases of the mouth. His book was finally published in English in 1946 by Lilian Lindsay, a medical science historian. 

The images above are excerpts from Pierre Fauchard's book, "The Surgeon Dentist," made publicly available by the "Wellcome Collection, a free museum and library that aims to challenge how we all think and feel about health." (Read more about this group at the link below.)

Read more: 

• Wellcome Collection: Images from Fauchard's book
• Pierre Fauchard Academy
• Article from the British Medical Journal: "Pierre Fauchard: the 'Father of Modern Dentistry'"