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Original Research



Traditional dentistry knowledge among Serbs in several Balkan countries

Dragan Ilic, Biljana Andjelski Radicevic, Anely Nedelcheva, Ivana Djurovic, Dejan Ostojic.




Abstract

Background/Aim: There are still unrevealed treasures of traditional dental medicine that are the reason to investigate and present various ways in treatment of oral and orofacial tissues as well as magic and religious elements involved in representative areas among Serbs. Methods: Information was collected from the elderly non-professional folk dentists and herbalists with additional help from local physicians and dentists that was done through questionnaire and personal interviews. Results: Classified and prepared material consists of total 1038 enquiry sheets. The 41 data were averagely obtained by inquiry form i.e. 41984 information for the whole research. The most voluminous was group of 64 recipes: gums diseases 39 and toothache 25 while only seven for magic way of treatment. Among them 18 prescriptions were of non-herbal origin. The study revealed 84 herbal original prescriptions including 67 plant species (29 families) including local name, synonyms and preparation mode. Traditional healers used predominantly herbal recipes to treatpainful tooth, gum disease, blisters - herpetic ulcers /lips and mouth/, stomatitis /painful mouth, ptyalismus/, maxillary sinusitis, bad breath, teeth cleaning and bleaching. Very few methods of treatment appeared as inadequate (magical practice), whereas majority were noted as beneficial ones (herbal medicine). Still many people in distant non-urban areas use various plant recipes especially as the first aid in oral disease healing. Conclusions: The significance of plants obtained from unpolluted areas whose active ingredients have not yet been used in dental pharmaceutics should be investigated further.

KEY WORDS: medicinal plants, ethnomedicine, dental ethnopharmacology, traditional dentistry, phytotherapy

Key words: medicinal plants, ethnomedicine, dental ethnopharmacology, traditional dentistry, phytotherapy






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