As the distinctive high-speed glissando ascends in the background and the peculiar odour of flavoured antiseptic mingles with vapourised enamel, the scene from "The Marathon Man" loops through your head and your sphincter tightens. Welcome to the dentist's office, an experience of sight, sound, smell, and sensation evoking a Proustian hell of remembrance.
For those on both sides of the dreaded dentist's chair, James Wynbrandt has written a witty, colorful, and richly informative history of the art and science of dentistry. To all of those dental patients whose whine rises in tandem with that of the drill, take note: You would do well to stifle your terror and instead offer thanks to Apollonia, the patron saint of toothache sufferers, that you face only fleeting discomfort rather than the disfiguring distress, or slow agonizing death oft meted out by dental-care providers of the past. The transition from yesterday's ignorance, misapprehension, and superstition to the enlightened and nerve-deadened protocols of today has been a long, slow, and very painful process.
Did you know that among the toothache remedies favoured by Pierre Fauchard, the father of dentistry, was rinsing the mouth liberally with one's own urine? I never tried this, nor did I do much else for my teeth during my younger years in Germany just after the war when toothpaste was still something of a luxury, and a toothbrush was not thrown away until worn down to its last bristle. Still, I now wish I had then been shown "Tommy Tucker's Tooth", one of the first Disney short silent films.
To stay on the right side of the dentist's chair and also on the right side of my favourite dentist in Ulladulla, I ordered two copies of this book: one for me to read and keep, and the other to give to him as a small "thank you" for looking after my fast diminishing number of teeth.
