Teeth and Surgery

Medieval dentistry was as bad as modern people fear. Tooth decay was widespread, and the standard treatment was extraction — by a barber, a blacksmith, or a traveling tooth-puller, with no anesthetic beyond a strong drink.

Surgery was barely better. Barbers doubled as surgeons because they already owned the sharp blades — the iconic red-and-white barber pole represents blood and bandages. Amputations were done without anesthesia, sterilization, or antibiotics, and survival often came down to whether infection set in afterward.