The history of domestic dentistry in the plots of literary works (based on materials from the memoirs of V. Kataev)

The subjects of memoir literature expand the range of sources used to study the history of medicine. The article, based on the memoirs of V. Kataev, analyzes dental treatment as a social phenomenon and a special cultural phenomenon, and also focuses on the medical and social problems of receiving this type of medical care. The author believes that at the beginning of the 20th century dentists received exclusive rights to dental care and the image of dentistry began to change to the authority of a profession that plays an important role in the preservation and treatment of teeth. Stable beliefs about regular visits to a specialist, the need for preventive fillings, and the restoration of lost teeth began to be embedded in the consciousness of the average person. However, the system of private dental practice, being at the intersection of craft and medical science, was based on individual sales of medical services, the dependence of the treatment process on the financial condition of the patient and could not dispel the established beliefs and stereotypes of people about the inevitability of dental damage with age, the low effectiveness of treatment and the inevitable physical pain.