Teeth

I’ve become a tremendous fan of Radio 4’s “A Point of View” – the ten minute talk broadcast between “Sunday Worship” and the News at nine o’clock on a Sunday morning – in the slot that Alistair Cooke used to occupy. It’s a kind of secular “Thought for the Day”, with a decidedly academic tinge. And it has some of the same rhetorical flourishes – including outrageously improbable links and connections.

You know how “Thought for the Day” will start with some blokeish reflections about Rooney’s latest sending-off. Then there will be a second or two’s pause, while our media vicar smartly changes direction with some line like “Well I’ve always thought that Jesus was a bit like a referee”…and then we’re off onto the religious bit.

Well, last Sunday David Cannadine, who is now writing and presenting his second or third mini-series of  “A Point of View”, kicked off with the unveiling of a blue plaque to John Betjeman in Highgate before he settled in to a nice cross-cultural (or at least transatlantic) comparison of dentistry and oral hygiene. The link? “Plaque” of course. And the fact that Betjeman had the most appalling teeth which for most of his life were apparently covered with foul green slime.

What on earth could kissing him have been like?

Cannadine was less interested in that than in the fact that Americans have better teeth than the British, and that even before America was Top Nation it pioneered almost every advance in dentistry that there has ever been (and being an academic he suggested there was a good research topic here).

The basic observation is clearly true. You only have to walk through an (affluent) American suburb to spot that, after years of orthodontics (an American invention, of course), everyone has perfectly regular teeth. My own tomb-stones would certainly not have survived if I had been brought up in the USA.

Whether this is a good idea, I’m not sure. There’s something about the way teeth naturally tend to go with the head they are born with – and something faintly ridiculous about the vast range of human oddity and irregularity, all of it being equipped with the same perfect dentition.

But the real cultural difference came home to me when I visited a US dentist a couple of years ago with a nasty wisdom tooth. When I opened my mouth, he muttered the dentist’s equivalent of “What cowboy put that in?” and said that if I has been in the States, my wisdom teeth would have been hacked out years ago. I tried to explain that we had a different philosophy on the mouth in the UK and I personally was rather committed to the principle of “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”. He looked slightly pitying, gave me antibiotics and an X-ray to take away – and refused to charge me (charmingly, but with the slight hint that I was a third world charity case).

Two years later in England, and same wisdom tooth necessitates a visit to the, fearsomely named, “oral surgeon”. Fully prepared for an extraction, I was told that in fact any pain I was feeling was just a bit of oral muscle strain. Of course, I’m no dentist and the diagnosis might be correct; there was certainly no self-interest on the surgeon’s part as he would have made a decent amount of money out of cutting me up. But it is my mouth and it doesn’t actually feel like a faulty muscle.

It was, I now conclude, exactly what Cannadine was talking about: different cultural assumptions on the care of the mouth.

Comments

[Leigh Ann Clark]

Consider that obsessive compulsive tendency of an entire culture to drink tea to excess for, what? 500 years? Could this have something to do with the notoriety of the teeth of a nation?

It's not so much the color and condition of the teeth that are a boon to comedians, rather it is undeniably that classically British look of being "long in the tooth".

A receding, darkened gum line and roots exposed like that of an aged horse sure doesn't make me want to kiss a Brit and I'm married to one, so that's a matter of concern for me. He cares for his teeth like an average person, but when questioned about tea drinking as being the culprit for receding gums, he parrots the oft publicized benefits of tea like a good citizen and reminds me he doesn't have cavities. He has a blatant disregard for the appearance of his teeth, an actual resolve that this is acceptable. I can see why.

An entire culture of people is so aligned, as evidenced in posts here. Why is it the English can't make a move without having a cup of tea first, and a cup of tea afterwards? I'm not insulting you, I want to know! Most information I find on tea's health benefits is touted by those who stand to profit. Claims are it aids the tooth, prevents decay, prevents cancer, etc. but what is it doing to the gums? Exposed roots of the teeth, or Periodontal Disease, exposes tender parts of the tooth root to bacteria which causes decay. This disease is contagious and very painful and expensive to deal with.

The stuff of tea inhibits the body's absorption of iron, which might explain the also infamous British pallor. We are talking about 20 generations of heavy tea drinkers.

In protest, preceding the American Revolution, independent thinkers that we lot are here in the States, we caught on and tea never gained the popularity it held in England. Here, I'm reading about a suspicion of orthodontics, which are to help us look our best and have less problems with bite alignment and more access to clean the surfaces of teeth, rather than having areas hard to reach be more prone to decay. Bizarre mindset. This same British government that built much wealth on the tax paid on tea offers a socialized healthcare system that is failing your nation's teeth and reputation for hygiene. Instead of seeking solutions to a nation's problem, who is behind the promotion of the health benefits?
The "facts and figures" ignore that most everyone drinks it with sugar, and many who drink it to excess. This site actually has a tea counter, tracking the number of cups of tea drank each day: http://www.tea.co.uk/
Who's getting rich? This is old money, dating back to early Imperialism and the fascist East India Tea Company.
From those with "at risk" oral health, a host of excuses are offered and a self acceptance has set in, evident here. A codependency exists. It has become fodder for many a mockery. Dismissed conveniently in this day of political correctness as a stereotype, it's no laughing matter. Very real issues exist grossly enmeshed accross an entire culture.
I had never heard of putting milk in tea before I met my husband and his family. My husband imbibes about 12 cups of tea every day. Upon conducting a bit of research for the sake of my husband's health, I also find that added milk alleviates some of the risk of developing kidney stones. I'm thinking hubby's off the charts with his tea consumption so even with milk, he could likely develop stones. Perhaps passing a few of those will curb the addiction?

[Michael Bywater]

Brings to mind his line in "Late-flowering Lust":

The mouth that opens for a kiss
Has got no tongue inside

[Virginia Smith]

As an American schoolchild, I remember that everytime the topic of George Washington as the father of our country came up in the classroom, there was mention that he had wooden false teeth. In fact, I believe his false teeth may have been constructed of whalebone or ivory. Perhaps we Americans run to the dentist to avoid the image of the wooden teeth.

My own daughter came home from school at the age of six wanting to be taken to the orthodontist for braces (she, at the time, had gaping holes where she had lost baby teeth) because a classmate was wearing some sort of corrective appliance and it was done up in pink.

[Fred O'Hanlon]

Speaking of orthodontics, as Mary in fact was, I visited ‘People's Hospital No 2’ in Suzhou - about an hour by train from Shanghai and more than an hour by bus from where I live a few miles away - recently, in the hope of receiving at people's prices the dental treatment I couldn't afford to pay a private dentist for in Dunfermline.

I was not at all surprised to learn from Mary that Americans were responsible for all the major advances in dentistry - or should I say 'orthodontics'? What exactly does ‘orthodontics’ mean anyway? ‘Straight teeth’ or ‘teeth in good condition’? What surprises me is that - with their traditional disregard for ancient Greek language and civilisation, with an 's' or a 'z', as you please - the Americans should introduce a new technical term of Greek vintage to replace the existing Latin one. What was wrong with ‘dentistry’? Maybe it was a bit too British.

If any Times readers are wondering whether or not to visit mainland China next summer, rest assured that all road and hospital signage is given in English as well as in Chinese characters. But here is a word of practical and/or pragmatic advice. Neither British nor American visitors in need of dental/orthodontic treatment should expect to find the word, as opposed to the treatment, they are looking for, in People’s Hospitals.

On entering People’s No 2 Hospital in Suzhou I scanned the signboard in vain for any reference to either Dental or Orthodontic. At second glance my attention dwelt on ‘Stomatology’. Since my immediate concern was with chewing rather than digesting I had rejected ‘stomatology’ at first sight. But, blessed as I am with a classical education, I recalled that ‘stoma’ meant ‘mouth’ in ancient Greek. Could it be that I needed treatment to my mouth rather than to my teeth? This inspirational insight was triumphantly vindicated.

But I remained perplexed about the etymology of ‘stomach’. Surely it must be derived from a Germanic root meaning something like ‘stomach’ rather than from a Greek word meaning ‘mouth’. Webster’s once again came to the rescue.

“Etymology: Middle English stomak, from Anglo-French estomac, from Latin stomachus gullet, esophagus, stomach, from Greek stomachos, from stoma mouth; akin to Middle Breton staffn mouth, Avestan staman-“

Naturally I had never previously connected ‘stomach’ to either Breton or Avestan.

Fred O'Hanlon

[James Warren]

Mary, you might like this:

Teeth

English Teeth, English Teeth!
Shining in the sun
A part of British heritage
Aye, each and every one.

English Teeth, Happy Teeth!
Always having fun
Champing down on bits of fish
And sausages half done.

English Teeth, HEROES' Teeth!
Here them click! and clack!
Let's sing a song of praise to them -
Three Cheers for the Brown Grey and Black.

-- Spike Milligan

[Simon Fielding]

I totally agree with your comments on 'Thought for the Day' and 'A Point of View'; the former has dissolved into a bizarre form of self-mockery, where the most tenuous extended metaphors provide a highway into the thought of 1st century CE Palestine....

'A Point of View' is lucid and refreshingly intelligent - and your description of Betjeman's teeth put me off my breakfast...

[Betty Gabriel-Jones]

Yes, I share your mixed feelings about dental care. Here in Australia we are going down the American path, and as a teacher I expected virtually every child in my class to sport braces at some point.
Many of them had seemed perfectly normal to me pre-braces. Oddly, Australian teeth are deteriorating - we have had fluoridated water for thirty years, but now the fashion is to drink bottled water only. No fluoride = tooth decay. I always suspected that the dentists started promoting orthodontic work when fluoride left them without thousands of fillings to insert.