I had a tooth break apart while eating something while walking home late at night during winter. The food and cold air hitting the exposed inner part of the tooth caused enough pain to stop me in my tracks and it just kept on hurting. I've felt worse pain, but not sustained for as long. It was inescapable and relentless. I had some paracetamol, but that was about as effective as bailing a leaky boat with a thimble. It seemed like a long time before the dentist opened and I could make a "please fix this now, please!" appointment. Where I got a boatload of anaesthetic injected into my mouth and all was well.
Alcoholic. A bucket of beer to blunt the pain until you could get to a tooth-puller (who might well be day's travel away if you lived in a small village) and to get through the treatment. Some herbal treatments that might have some beneficial effect if you're lucky. Cloves, for example. They have some antiseptic and anaesthetic effect. Or some DIY dentistry courtesy of a bit of string and a heavy weight. Or the village blacksmith, who'd have a pair of pliers of some sort and a strong grip. And a bucket of beer.
Things were usually less bad than many people today think, though. In most places in most of the past people ate a tiny fraction of the sugar intake that's normal today and almost never as close to pure sugar. That makes a huge difference. They also cleaned their teeth, probably often and thoroughly because they knew from observation that it worked and they would be keen to avoid the dentistry of the past as much as possible.
