DENTISTRY: THE EARLY YEARS
By Robert E. Horseman, DDS
When the first people appeared several million years later, if you can believe Darwin, Leakey, et al, there were still no dentists. Mainly, this was because there was no demand for dental services. Early Man complained, “Teeth, schmeeth, I’m hungry, cold and naked. I live in a bad neighborhood in this cave what don’t even have an en suite bathroom and I got no shoes.” He had a point. Fortunately, he had excellent teeth and a nice complexion marred only by a Gillette-deprived beard, because two of the latter-day food groups, sugar and grease, hadn’t been invented yet.
When the first man discovered sugar cane tasted better than bamboo, civilization started its long downhill slide that made the advent of dentists inevitable. The use of sugar cane became very popular. Kids would go around all day with a length of sugar cane stuck in their faces. Mothers would yell at them to not run with a stick in their mouths, but they kept bonking into things that resulted in palatal and uvular discomfort. It was a habit that persisted even among adults until the discovery of tobacco. For an alternative to sugar cane, youngsters had to wait until M & Ms came along that were just the right size to stuff up their nostrils.
Tobacco was slow in finding favor with primitive man until the discovery of fire. This was another one of those accidents that turn out to be so beneficial, like being run down by a Mercedes whose owner has a pile of liability insurance. A man sucking on a rolled leaf of tobacco was standing in an open field contemplating his navel when he was struck by lightning. Although stunned, he was quick to discover that the ignited tobacco gave him a definite lift, even though it tasted like broiled camel dung.
The prime elements that made the entrance of a professional tooth person a foregone conclusion were now in place—sugar to rot the teeth, tobacco to stain them and enough ignorance to ensure neglect would continue. The final elements to establish dentistry as a viable business, anesthesia and VISA, would appear later.
The very first toothache treatment occurred sometime around 2000 B.C. when a chap who had been whining and complaining for weeks, took a roundhouse right from another cave person who got tired of listening to his caviling. Luckily, the blow luxated the offending tooth and the ache promptly subsided. “Well, hey,” concluded the victim, “I think we got something here.”
After that whenever a toothache manifested itself, the sufferer got a friend to knock it out for him. Certain individuals with genetic personality defects actually enjoyed knocking out peoples’ teeth and became adept at it. When a toothache took its toll on a member of the group, someone would offer, “Go get Oog, he’ll take care of it for you.” Oog, whose last name has been forgotten, was probably the first dentist.
Eventually, Man began to see a pattern here, one that finally rendered him nearly toothless and one that prompted him to find alternative treatment modalities. Despite the fact that some early civilizations such as the Mayans, the Incas, the Egyptians, the Forty-Niners and the Elks had made primitive inlays and bridges, dentistry was going nowhere fast as a profession.
A breakthrough came on a Thursday in Weehawken, New Jersey when a customer, asked by his barber, “Do you want a haircut?” riposted just once too often, “No, I want them ALL cut!”
When it was all over and the shop’s other customers were admiring the expertise with which the barber had rendered the customer edentulous, it was decided that barbers would henceforth be the officially designated town dentist.
Besides being clever with the clippers, barbers were very good with extractions and would even do a bit of gum surgery if they had imbibed enough bay rum, but the problem of edentulous patrons was a limiting factor in their dual careers. Finally, deciding that hair grew back better than teeth and thus afforded a self-perpetuating customer base, barbers concluded that offering an eight-year course leading to a DDS or DMD degree was probably a better way to go.
If truth be known, their decision to eschew dentistry was predicated more on these considerations: (1) a little Brylcream was the worst thing they could get on their hands, (2) dandruff was less yucky than saliva, (3) insurance companies didn’t interfere in the sacred barber/customer relationship, (4) iatrogenic errors grew back in two weeks and (5) they could give away all-day suckers to little kids without feeling guilty.
In retrospect, we’re inclined to consider this a wise move. I can still go the barber of my choice, unhampered by any Hair Management Organizations. Even though he spends less time with me than he did 20 years ago, that’s not his fault. Although he deals with sharps on a daily basis, his hands are unsheathed, his face unmasked and the place still looks like it did when we were kids. On the downside, I don’t get offered a sucker any more and he still doesn’t think, “No, cut ‘em ALL” is funny.
Originally published in the Journal of the California Dental Association, 2/98.