Endodontics (greek root endo “inside” and odont “tooth”) is a specialty practice of dentistry that concentrates on the study, diagnosis, cause and treatment of the dental pulp and roots of the teeth. The dental pulp is the tissue within the tooth that is made up of nerves and blood supply.
There is evidence that some form of endodontics may have been practiced as early as the second century BCE. A skull with a bronze wire in the root of a tooth was located near the Negev Desert in Israel. Researchers are led to believe that the wire was most likely used to perform treatment on an infected pulp.
Steady progress has been made over the years as dentists increased their understanding of the relationship of the dental pulp to dental health. Through continuous research came the advancement of more effective local anesthetics, more diagnostic X-rays and highly advanced technological equipment. All of these things allow the patient a better, more comfortable and increasingly more predicable way of saving their teeth.
According to the American Association of Endodontists (AAE), endodontics was recognized as a dental specialty in 1963. The practice of endodontics has come a long way from the second century BCE in the Negev Desert, Israel to present day in Louisville, KY.
Saving one tooth at a time, Dr. Scott Norton (practicing endodontist in Louisville, KY) appreciates the dynamic innovations in endodontics.