The big reason that anesthetic is so vital to dental care is to maintain patient comfort throughout treatment and to alleviate some of their anxieties if at all possible. Minimizing pain during surgeries and various dental operations has been a part of history dating back to medieval times. Before the invention of today’s local anesthetic many different techniques were used to try and help ease patient discomfort during operations. While most of them offered no help in lessening the pain, they were all a great first step in realizing that something was needed in order to move forward. Surgeries and operations before anesthetic were very painful and often someone was needed to help control the patients. In some cases, in order to complete a surgery many men were needed to hold down the patients and the surgeons had to try and drown on the patient’s cries and try to work as quickly as they possibly could (Blatner, 2018). Other techniques such as compression, bitter root, cold water, pressure on blood vessels, mandragora, cannabis, henbane, opium, alcohol and even electricity were used to help try to comfort the patient during painful procedures (Goldie, 2018). None of these techniques for minimizing patient discomfort were effective enough and many of them were addictive and caused adverse side effects. They knew that in order to maintain patient comfort during these procedures something stronger, more effective, and longer-lasting was
The big reason that anesthetic is so vital to dental care is to maintain patient comfort throughout treatment and to alleviate some of their anxieties if at all possible. Minimizing pain during surgeries and various dental operations has been a part of history dating back to medieval times. Before the invention of today’s local anesthetic many different techniques were used to try and help ease patient discomfort during operations. While most of them offered no help in lessening the pain, they were all a great first step in realizing that something was needed in order to move forward. Surgeries and operations before anesthetic were very painful and often someone was needed to help control the patients. In some cases, in order to complete a surgery many men were needed to hold down the patients and the surgeons had to try and drown on the patient’s cries and try to work as quickly as they possibly could (Blatner, 2018). Other techniques such as compression, bitter root, cold water, pressure on blood vessels, mandragora, cannabis, henbane, opium, alcohol and even electricity were used to help try to comfort the patient during painful procedures (Goldie, 2018). None of these techniques for minimizing patient discomfort were effective enough and many of them were addictive and caused adverse side effects. They knew that in order to maintain patient comfort during these procedures something stronger, more effective, and longer-lasting was