Study drills down for toothache cures in past

Taking a tooth from a corpse, putting a live frog in your mouth, and drinking water from holy wells were just some of the ways past generations used to cure toothaches.

Research from the School of Nursing and Human Sciences at Dublin City University analysed 19th- and early 20th-century cures for toothache and found that people tried all sorts of weird and wonderful methods.

The findings, in the Journal of the History of Dentistry, were from an analysis of narratives contained in the Schools’ Collection, a folklore-collecting scheme from 1937 to 1938.

A total of 6,847 cures were sampled of which 405 were toothache cures and classified under three categories: plant and mineral cures, quasi-medical cures, and magico-religious cures.

Salt and water were two of the most widely-used substances. The humble potato was carried in the pocket of the sufferer as an amulet to ward off a toothache.

One of the more bizarre methods discovered was placing a frog in the sufferer’s mouth and repeating religious blessings. Frogs were believed to have healing powers and their interaction with water bred the notion that they could draw away pain from the sufferer by transference. Packing the infected tooth with tobacco was one of the most common methods, along with inhaling hot smoke.