License to Smile
“A smile is a curve that puts everything straight” — Phyllis Diller
Smile increases the face value and good teeth are a pre-requisite for a good smile. Poets over the ages have simulated good, white, pearly teeth to diamonds. Aesthetically like diamonds, these ivory projections surpass them in value when it comes to their function in chewing the all important food stuff to keep the wheel of life moving, besides performing phonetics and other bodily obligations they are designed for. Every tooth in a man’s head is more valuable than a diamond, goes the saying and nothing can be more true than this.
History of dentistry dates back to 3000 years BC when the ancient Egyptians used gold wires on the teeth as a means of cosmetic enhancement. The Greeks used precious stones and gold pins, inlaid on the labial surfaces of their anterior teeth, around 1000 BC, as decorative and religious rituals. The people from the Harappan period of Indus Valley Civilization in 3300 BC too had knowledge of medicine and dentistry. Dentistry was not a profession to start with as it were the general physicians, quacks and barbers who carried out the dental procedures on patients in the olden days. Chief surgeon and dentist to the King of France in the 15th century was his barber. The Greek, Roman and later the Muslim scientists improved upon and developed this science helping it reach its present day zenith. Miswak, a primitive version of modern day tooth brush, is a feat of Islamic dentistry.
Dentistry has evolved from a simple tooth pick to today’s state-of-the-art technology. The developments over the centuries were remarkable. Hippocrates was the first person to introduce dentifrice for oral hygiene maintenance, while the Romans performed restorative and prosthetic procedures as early as the second century AD. First professional manually reclining dental chair was designed and constructed in the US in the early 19th century, while the first formal dental clinic in America was established in a general hospital around the same time period. It took less than half a century to develop an electrically operated dental chair which was a big leap forward in the modernization of the dental equipment. Now fully computerized dental chairs and units are the order of the day. “Operator for the teeth” was the first book in English language that talked about dentistry as a profession.
No wonder with so much advancement in technology and phenomenal investment in research and development, the cost of the dental treatment has gone sky rocketing, way beyond the reach of the common man. The inordinate initial investment of setting up a fully equipped dental office further adds to the woes of the operating dentist and his patients. It is a pity that it has become a profession affordable only by the rich and the affluent while the underprivileged lot has to look to the old and obsolete modes of treatment. According to a survey millions of American adults and children lack access to dental care which is pathetic for this day and age especially in a rich country like the United States.
Some cynics rear adverse feelings about this profession and try to rate it below other medical fields because they cannot see beyond the removal of the teeth as the ultimate dental treatment. The concept of conservative dentistry is beyond their mental calibre. Living mentally in the times of yore they deserve to be treated by the dentist of the King of France of the 15th century. I pity them, not for their lack of resources or affordability because that is not the prime issue with them, but for their primitive knowledge of the modern day advancements in the field. Only the educated and the enlightened can appreciate and benefit from modern dental treatment. Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, a presidential candidate of the country in the 1964 general elections and sister of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan and a leading and affluent lawyer of his time, qualified as a dentist when most people in the subcontinent were not aware of this profession. It has been a profession of the enlightened since ages.
Cosmetics and dentistry are practically synonymous with each other. “A smile that shows a missing tooth often sends an uncomplimentary message to others”, goes a saying. No matter how much one adorns himself bedecking with jewelry and rich fabrics, a set of nicely aligned, glistening white teeth are compulsory for complete embellishment. You are never fully dressed without a smile. People seldom notice old clothes if you wear a big smile and that is not possible without a presentable set of teeth. Cosmetic dentistry is like plastic surgery in medical field or architecture in engineering where, besides professional technicalities, art and aesthetics play the ‘big brother’ role. It is art and science of dentistry. It is visual poetry. I have been told the University of the Punjab used to confer the ‘degree in art and science of dentistry’ on its dental alumni until a few decades ago. This practice has since been discontinued for reasons better known to the authorities. Dentists sculpt beautiful teeth, hence these befitting words. I wonder why a need was felt to change them.
Like all newly launched projects dentistry too has its share of the teething problems. The cutting of teeth is a difficult period in a child’s life. It is painful and irritating, invariably leading to febrile conditions. They say Adam and Eve had many advantages the way they were ‘born and brought up’ but the principal one was that they escaped teething. The ordeal of cutting teeth does not end with the eruption of the deciduous teeth but stretches till the the milk teeth start shedding to be replaced by their permanent successors. This is where the legendary tooth fairy comes into play. Losing baby teeth are a part and parcel of one’s life- a symbol of growing up, and it is the tooth fairy that makes this otherwise dreaded and painful process an exciting one- something that little children look forward to. The tooth fairy tells the children they can sell their body parts for money, even though they may be destined for the trash. Tooth fairy, like Santa Clause, is a fairytale character but all the more fascinating for the innocent souls who earnestly believe in its being a ‘reality show’.
Dental treatment is generally known to be very scare mongering and people try to avoid and postpone it as far as humanly possible. A patient on a maiden trip to a dental office was scared to death when, seated in the chair; he saw a church entrance through the office window with the inscription ‘Be prepared to meet thy Lord’. Ogden Nash: has summed up these problems on a lighter note in the following words:
“Some tortures are physical,
And some are mental,
But the one that is both,
Is dental.”
Jokes and fears aside, the public at large need to be enlightened that the surgeries in general and dental surgery in particular are far less painful than they used to be over a century ago. The discovery of anesthesia is a big heavenly blessing for which we must be ever grateful to Allah Almighty. It was a big breakthrough in the field of medicine when anesthesia was first discovered, publicly demonstrated, and put into clinical practice by a dentist in the last quarter of the 19th century in Scotland. It was general anesthesia that was first introduced in clinical practice while its local counterpart was introduced a few years later. The tomb stone of Dr. Horace Wells, the discoverer of anesthesia, reads:
“There shall be no more pain.”
So take heart dear dental patients and have a stitch in time than suffering advanced dental ailments just because of the unfounded fears and apprehensions. Prevention is better than cure.
The writer is a dental surgeon and can be reached at: dsq006@gmail.com
Written by Dr. Shahid Qayyum
Published by Alisha Khuram
