Adjustable pelican, tooth extractor, with screw mechanism. Pelicans are an early type of dental forceps, so named due to their claw which was thought to resemble a pelican's beak. Tooth extraction is the earliest known dental procedure, it was used as a last-resort cure for toothache. Pelican extractors originated in the fourteenth century and by the 1500s they had become the most popular tool for tooth-drawing amongst barber surgeons and practitioners. No two alike, each pelican extractor would have been individually designed to order. This example is English and dates from around 1750.