Toothache Cured By Electrotherapy
- Time Period: 1700s to 1900s
Electrotherapy can be used today for multiple issues, but for many years physicians used electricity in an attempt to treat numerous illnesses or problems. One that seemed to be pretty commonplace was its use on toothaches. The concept was pushed heavily by British evangelist John Wesley. In his book Primitive Physick, Or, An Easy and Natural Method Of Curing Most Diseases, he wrote about numerous illnesses and how to treat them. To be clear, this man was a cleric and theologian… not a doctor.
Yet he suggested that toothaches should be treated with electricity in his book, written in the 1740s. Electricity was used for a lot of issues at the time from tapeworms and paralysis to epilepsy and much more. Thus, using it for tooth problems only made sense, right? Wrong. This never truly worked but the electricity could jar someone’s brain, making them forget about the ache. But that is like saying your right-hand hurts, so you should stab your left hand to make the right feel better. It is not exactly useful to do. Old medical treatments like this tried to use a popular treatment of the time for darn near everything.