The Making of the Dentiste, c. 1650-1760

by King,Roger

• ISBN13: 9781840146530
• ISBN10: 1840146532
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-12-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The early decades of the eighteenth century saw the appearance of a completely new type of surgical practitioner in France: the dentiste. The use of this title was of the utmost significance, indicating not just the making of a new practitioner but of an entirely new practice - the dentiste was, quite literally, making a name for himself. Appearing on the back of dramatic changes within surgery in general, the practice of the dentiste, although it focused only on the teeth, was nevertheless extensive. In addition to extractions, there was also a wide-ranging field of operations on offer, the performance of which had only been hinted at by the surgeon of the seventeenth century. This new sphere of practice represented a radical departure from what had gone before and, as this book reveals, it was all built solidly on sound surgical foundations, with the dentiste occupying a respected position within society in general and the medical world in particular.This book places the making of the dentiste within social, political and technical contexts, and in so doing re-contextualises the purely progressive stories told in conventional histories of dentistry. In doing so, it brings surgery back to its central role in this story, and reveals for the first time the origins of the dentise in the French surgical profession.

Author Biography

Roger King is an Associate of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine at the University of Cambridge.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	vii	(2)
Acknowledgements	ix	(2)
Note on Aims and Sources	xi
Introduction: 'Problematizing' the History of Dentistry	1	(10)
1 Pretending to Draw Teeth: The Mountebank Drug-seller of the Fairs and Markets	11	(23)
2 Drawing Teeth: Practitioners below the Ladder of 'Official' Surgery	34	(18)
3 Teeth as Surgical Practice in the Seventeenth Century	52	(11)
4 The Fall and Rise of Academic Surgery in the Ancien Regime, and the Appearance of a Surgical Science for the Teeth	63	(34)
5 The Making of the Dentiste Technically: Pierre Fauchard, and the Work of the Chirurgien Dentiste	97	(59)
6 The Making of the Dentiste Socially: Appearance, Ennoblement and the Court	156	(59)
Bibliography	215	(12)
Index	227