One of my favourite Museums – the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons – has opened a new exhibition about the agonising past and promising future of dentistry. Actually, it’s been open for a month, but I only just noticed thanks to this toothsome BBC article.

Much of the exhibition focuses on the pioneering work of Sir John Tomes, a Victorian medic who developed many important techniques: “…from plotting biology of the teeth to developing instruments and furniture. He even kept a register at the hospital of every case he treated and used these to analyse which teeth were most at risk of disease.” Tomes was also the first to claim his speciality as dentistry.

Before the onset of Tomes’ advances and, most importantly, anaesthesia, dentistry was a notoriously grisly pursuit. An extracted tooth would often bring along part of the gum or jaw for the ride.

Today, we expect near painless tooth extraction, flawless capping and false teeth that are unnoticeable. The future is even more shiny white. In the BBC article, Bristol dental consultant Paul King looks to the scene 20-50 years from now. “X-ray scanners now do 3D scans of mouth and bone and tissues, and from that you can computer manufacture missing teeth…They have already grown teeth, albeit only in mice. If we have to replace teeth the blue sky is we will be doing it by biological regeneration.”

Sir John Tomes: Victorian Dental Pioneer is at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, 35-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, until September 25.