Oral history: The innovative impact of Tick Begg on orthodontics and Adelaide’s rise as the global ‘orthodontic capital’ in the 1920s

In medieval Europe, barber-surgeons cut hair, shaved faces, performed bloodletting, and repaired broken limbs.

They also used a crude beak-like handle called a “pelican” to extract teeth, and iron “Tooth KeyIn the 17th century, you might defeat it with a steel sword. Punch Elevator.

It’s been a winding and scary journey from early dentists to today’s world of 3D printing, artificial intelligence, and robots that can create dental implants.

Wayne Sampson, professor emeritus of dental history at the University of Adelaide, said the history of dentistry far predates the time of barber-surgeons.

“If you look archaeologically, you’ll find dental evidence. The Etruscans used gold wire to hold teeth in place, usually animal teeth, but possibly human,” he says.

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