Tooth Rot

Ailment

Kind	Illness
Cause	Decay of the teeth, hastened by sweet and soft food, sticky grain, and age; swellings where the rot reaches the root
Strikes	Every people with teeth, most as they age; the Wrought are spared
Contagion	Not contagious
Mortality	Seldom kills; a swelling of the jaw that goes to the blood sometimes does
Treatment	Drawing the tooth; herbs and willow bark for the ache, salt-water rinses; Nerve Quiet for the drawing; lancing a swelling
Regions	Widespread; worst where honey, sweet fruit, and fine grain are eaten often

The decay of teeth and the swellings of the gums and jaw that follow it, an ache nearly everyone knows by old age, ended most often by the tooth-drawer's pliers.

Overview

Tooth rot is the commonest pain of grown life. Almost everyone loses teeth to it, and a toothache can keep a household awake as surely as a fever. Most of it ends at a market stall, with a tooth-drawer and a pair of pliers. It is rarely dangerous. The fear is the swelling of the jaw that sometimes follows, which can go to the blood.

Cause

Teeth decay where food lies on them, most of all honey, sweet fruit, and sticky porridge and bread. The rot eats a hole through the hard outer tooth and into the soft core, and if it reaches the root it festers there, swelling the gum and the jaw. Age, a cracked tooth, and a poor diet hasten it.

Who It Strikes

Every people with teeth takes it, and more of it as they age. Those who eat sweet and soft food often suffer more than those who live on tough meat, fish, and coarse fare. The Wrought do not eat and are spared.

Signs and Course

It starts with a twinge when something sweet, hot, or cold touches a tooth, and a dark spot or a soft place that the tongue finds. The twinge becomes an ache, then a throbbing that is worst at night and lying down. A tooth that has rotted through may stop aching for a while as the core dies, which is no good sign.

Then the gum may swell over the root into a hard, hot lump, the face swells on that side, and the patient runs a fever and cannot open the mouth fully or swallow easily. Most such swellings burst or are lanced, drain foul matter, and ease. A few spread down the neck or into the blood (see Wound Rot), and those can kill within days.

Contagion

It does not pass between people.

Treatment and Its Limits

The common cure is drawing the tooth. A tooth-drawer, a barber, or a smith pulls it, the patient spits blood and salt water for a day, and the ache is gone. A Vital healer can make the drawing bearable with Nerve Quiet, though overnumbing can hide worse harm beneath. For the ache, households chew bitter bark, willow bark among it, or hold a pad of herbs against the gum (see Herbs), and rinse with warm salt water. A swelling is lanced and drained.

Nothing gives back a lost tooth. Healing that regrows simple tissue does not reach a tooth, and a mouth that has lost its teeth stays empty or is fitted with carved ones.

Mortality

Tooth rot seldom kills. A jaw swelling left alone or squeezed sometimes goes to the blood and kills, more often in the old and the weakened. What it leaves behind is a mouth with gaps, a diet of soft food in old age, and in the poorest, years of pain.

Lore and Belief

Many peoples hold that a small worm eats the tooth from within and can be smoked out with seeds burned over a candle; the "worms" that fall out are the seeds' own husks. A toothache is said to come from a cold wind on the cheek, or from envy. Some say a drawn tooth must be burned or buried, never thrown away, or another will follow it.

In the Medieval Era

Tooth-drawers work the markets and fairs of every town, often beside herb-sellers, and village smiths draw teeth where no drawer comes. Households treat the ache with herbs and patience. Healers rarely spend lifeforce on a tooth; it is cheaper to pull it. Honey and sweet fruit are the treats of the well-off, and so are their aching teeth.

Where It Appears

This ailment grows out of: