Head and Neck Pain in Temporomandibular Joint Disease and Muscle Spasm

History  Pathological changes in the temporomandibular joint of early modern man have been reported.¹ The surgeon of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, 3000 B. C., knew the anatomy of this joint. The earliest known surgical text, the Edwin Smith Papyrus,² has one case, a "dislocation of the mandible," with the method of reduction that is still used today. In 1842, Cooper is said³ to have reported snapping in the temporomandibular joint, and in 1887 Annandale³ repositioned the articular disc and sutured it to the outer side of the joint. Lang has been named³ as the surgeon who introduced disc extirpation (1909). The role of the dental apparatus in temporomandibular joint disturbances was first noted by Prentiss⁴ and Summa⁵ in 1918. Costen^6-10 and Goodfriend¹¹¹³ in the early 1930's called attention to the diversity of symptoms produced by pathology of the temporomandibular joint,