Ethnodentistry Research in Serbia and Montenegro
Ethnodentistry Research in Serbia and Montenegro

Summary/Abstract: Ethnodentistry (E), the branch of ethnomedicine, might be defined as the scientific discipline which deals with collection and study on the folk customs in the scope of the knowledge on the causes and treating of the oral diseases, teeth and gums and orofacial diseases and anomaly. E records the survived empiric dentist’s experiences, archaic terms and witchcraft elements and influence of magic elements to the oral hygiene. The first E research in Serbia were ran by Vera Gavrilović (1972), the professor-lecturer on the history of dentistry. There were no approved method for this pioneer research thus preliminary study resulted in many mistakes which pointed out to the construction of the adequate questionnaire valid for ethnodentistry research. Because of that and due to the political situation in the former Yugoslavia and later events (1991-2001), the polling was continued from 2002 to 2008. The aim of this research was to record the present folk dentistry knowledge (health culture) in 31 representative areas of Serbia and six of Montenegro (by the help of trained inquirers) concerning the data about treatment of oral and orofacial tissues (teeth, gums), dentist’s standing as well as magic and religious elements involved in. The data were collected through the authors and students of Faculty of Stomatology in Belgrade using modification of original method on the sample of rural regions on the old person who were non-professional or “professional’’ folk dentists and herbalists by the additional help of local physicians and dentists. Operation on 1125 survey sheets classified into five groups revealed the most data about toothache (61) and the least (7) of magic recipes. The most valuable obtained data considered to be about plants whose active ingredients has not been yet used in dental pharmaceutical industry. The valuable suggestions might be directed to the contemporary applied pharmacology and those herbs that are growing on the still unpoluted isolated spots. Collected data might be of use for some social sciences (ethnology, linguistics, history etc.) Analysis of data pointed out to the very few wrong methods of treatment in traditional dentistry whereas majority of them noted as beneficial ones what depicted the health culture level of every single investigated region.

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