Pierre Fauchard

 ( 1679 Births ) 

Pierre Fauchard (; 2 January 1679 – 21 March 1761) was a French physician, credited as being the "father of modern dentistry". He is widely known for writing the first complete scientific description of dentistry, Le Chirurgien Dentiste ( "The Surgeon Dentist"), published in 1728. The book described basic oral anatomy and function, signs and of oral pathology, operative methods for removing dental caries and Prosthodontics, periodontal disease (pyorrhea), orthodontics, replacement of missing teeth, and tooth Organ transplant.

During that time, Fauchard learned that sailors who were on long voyages suffered severely from dental ailments, scurvy in particular. Eventually Major Poteleret inspired and encouraged him to read and carefully investigate the findings of his predecessors in the healing arts. He said he wanted to disseminate the knowledge he learned at sea based on actual practice. This idea led Fauchard to become a combat medic as Poteleret's protégé.

Despite the limitations of the primitive surgical instruments during the late 17th and early 18th century, Fauchard was considered a highly skilled surgeon by many of his colleagues at Angers University Hospital. Fauchard made remarkable improvisations of dental instruments, often adapting tools from watch, and even , that he thought could be used in dentistry.

Fauchard introduced as treatment for dental cavities. He asserted that sugar derivate acids like tartaric acid were responsible for caries, and also suggested that tumors surrounding the teeth, in the Gingiva, could appear in the later stages of tooth decay.

Fauchard was the pioneer of Prosthodontics, and he discovered many methods to replace lost teeth. He suggested that substitutes could be made from carved blocks of ivory or bone and those artificially-made dental pieces would be useful as the natural ones. One of this methods stated that the artificial teeth would be held in place by tying them to the remaining solid teeth by Lever, using waxed thread or gold wire. He also introduced dental braces, although they were initially made of gold, he discovered that the teeth position could be corrected as the teeth would follow the pattern of the wires. Waxed linen or silk threads were usually employed to fasten the braces.

In 1718, Fauchard moved to Paris. During his stay in that city, Pierre realized that many medical libraries lacked good textbooks on dentistry and that an encyclopedic teaching book of oral surgery was needed, so he made the decision to write a professional dentist's treatise based on his medical experience.

For many months Fauchard gathered as many medical research books as he could, interviewed the many dentists he had met, and reviewed his personal diaries during his years at Angers to write his manual. Finally in 1723, at the age of 45, he completed the first 600-page manuscript for "Le Chirurgien Dentiste" (roughly translated as "The Surgical Dentist"). Fauchard sought further feedback from his peers over the next five years, and the manuscript had grown to 783 pages by the time it was published in 1728 in two volumes. The book was well received in the European medical community. A German translation was already available in 1733, an enlarged edition in French was published in 1746, yet an English translation had to await 200 more years to 1946.

Literature on teeth was generally found in treatises on surgery, as there were no books written explicitly on teeth at the time.

There was no regulation on who could do work on teeth until the Paris Medical Faculty issued the Edict of 1699, which created the title of expert pour les dents, or "tooth expert," for people certified to do dental work.

(1702–1748), a dentist like Fauchard, spent many years of his life in [[enamel|Tooth enamel]] [[hypoplasia]] research.