Interesting...oddly...when my tooth was hurting before I had the root canal done...the tooth was so sore I could touch it with my finger and that created so much pain I thought it would blow the top of my head off. While the doctor was doing the root canal and I was feeling zero pain I was wondering how bad something like that must have been before the advent of good numbing agents and how bad their teeth must have hurt back in the days before good teeth hygiene.