Abstract
Saint Apollonia was a Christian martyr who died in 249 CE in Egypt defending her devotion to her Christian faith. Before she died, her teeth were shattered and violently extracted to torture her to force her to renounce Christianity. Saint Apollonia was later named the patron saint for those who suffered from toothache and for those who alleviate that pain, the dental profession. Her story has been embellished over the centuries. Her commemorations in the form of relics, paintings, statues, prayers, ceremonies, and traditions are distributed worldwide and celebrated into the twenty-first century. Her feast day is honored every February 9.
Some tortures are physical, And some are mental, But the one that is both is dental. — Ogden Nash
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Niekrash, C.E. (2022). Saint Apollonia: Patron Saint of Dentistry. In: Ferneini, E.M., Goupil, M.T., Halepas, S. (eds) The History of Maxillofacial Surgery. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89563-1_1
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