In stories written during the 1700's, 1800's, and further back, little mention is made of teeth, but there must have been regular problems with teeth. Having been completely sidelined by tooth pain in this modern era, I wonder how people dealt with an abscessed tooth in the past. The pain would have been just as dazzling for them, and their painkillers would have been much more limited.
Did people just pull teeth that went bad?
What sort of tools did they use? What tools would they have used prior to the invention of pliers?
Did people just expect regular dental pain as they aged and tolerate it?
Two observations separate by thousands of years but by only a few hundred miles: The "spirit cave man" dating to more than 9,000 years before present, found in the western Great Basin, represents the oldest mummified human remains found in the western hemisphere. The skin on his face showed evidence of an eruption from an abscessed upper tooth that likely killed him. Before his death, the infection resulted in a painful open sore. The man was likely in his forties at the time of his death.
In 1850, the Hosea Grosh writing from the California Gold Rush describes the following about his brother Allen: Allen had "some ugly stumps pulled from his jaws as it could be done with but little pain, they being loosened by the scurvy..." Both brothers were in their early twenties at the time.
Those who would yearn for a machine to allow for time travel to the past had best make provisions for a possible return in case of dental issues.