In the “Century of Light”, on the basis of surgical knowledge, anatomical developments in the universities, and the experience of wandering physicians and certain artisans, autonomous dental medicine developed and was documented by Pierre Fauchard. After a surgical apprenticeship in the Navy, he carried out the task of compiling all the empirical knowledge of the epoch, and included a good number of his own ideas. In 1728 he published his work in two volumes, ‘The Dental Surgeon’, the most important work devoted to dentistry up to that time.