Resumen

RAMIREZ SKINNER, H. And what was there before Fauchard? Dentistry in caverns, temples, hospitals and universities. Rev. Clin. Periodoncia Implantol. Rehabil. Oral [online]. 2012, vol.5, n.1, pp. 29-39. ISSN 0719-0107.  doi: 10.4067/S0719-01072012000100006.

This paper shows the origin of dentistry among the primitive inhabitants of the planet, the physicians of the Antiquity, Renaissance and Middle Ages up to the modern times and the establishment of the concept of university clinical hospital. It endorses the practice of dentistry by definition as a medical act that has the human being in the society as the object of the act itself, and the health to restore as the one and indivisible good to enhance. Both concepts are the limits and natural frame of all the medical practice. Dentistry was born with the human being, together with getting sick, ageing and dying.

Palabras clave : History of medicine; history of dentistry; medical act; education for the surgeon dentist.