Why does going to the dentist feel like a trip back in time to the stone age?

In this era of hi-tech surgery and medical innovation, dentistry can feel a little left behind. But is this fair, or just an image problem?

Who among us hasn’t had this thought, as a dentist industriously and cheerfully chisels and scrapes and drills away at your teeth: surely there is a better way?

When anthropologists last month discovered evidence of dental handiwork in a 14,000-year-old tooth, the surprising thing about it wasn’t the fact that people in the stone age had cavities and tried to do something about them. It was the fact that the procedure seemed so … familiar.

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from Health & wellbeing | The Guardian http://ift.tt/1NDaNcX
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