This dental scraping instrument was used to remove the soft carious tissue, before placing a mastic, gutta-percha or gold filling. This instrument, most likely from the early 1800s, has an ivory handle and is part of a set of instruments, all similar in the design. Most likely, it was custom made for the benefit of a dentist. These instruments were never sterilized. The concept of infection did not enter medical consciousness until Pasteur published it in 1864. Such instruments, at best were wiped and reused immediatly. They had only one set of instruments. Dentists of the early 19th century were privately trained during a 1-2 year apprenticeship. If the patient was lucky, it was a physician that decided to branch out into dentistry. However, in the majority of the cases, dentists were self-taught and never formally trained in a dental school until 1841, when the first class of four dentists at Baltimore College of Dental Surgery graduated. Was not easy to be a patient. Description by Dr. Andrew Spielman
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