Neanderthals drilled cavities to treat a toothache 59,000 years ago

Robdel12

This is so awesome. This is just a dumb off the cuff thought but I do wonder how hardwired this is into us as a species. I have a crummy autoimmune disease and I can’t tell you how many times when I’m in bad pain my brain is like “cut it off” or something like that.

deafpolygon

Maybe this is proof of time-travel.

AngryData

As someone who has experienced serious tooth infection and internal pressure out of reach of dentistry, im not too surprised. It took everything I had even with tons of benzocaine to not go medieval on my face with my toolbox. If I was living in the stone age I probably would of tried to bust the tooth out with a rock and stick if nobody else had any solutions.

londons_explore

Has anyone tried vacuum to treat cavities? Hooking up a vacuum pump should cause the contents of the cavity to dry out after a few minutes and dessicate. In the process the boiling liquid pushes out foreign matter. And then some low viscosity resin can be used to displace where the water was. Might stop drilling being necessary whilst still separating bacteria from their energy source. Seems obvious, but can't find any papers of this being tried.