Tracing the roots of tooth fairy traditions; A trip to the dentist has PETER DUTTON pondering the origins of the tooth fairy.

Byline: PETER DUTTON

WE all fondly remember the Tooth Fairy, who crept into our bedroom while we slept, removed the baby tooth we'd tucked under the pillow and left a reward. In my day it was a shiny silver sixpence. Today it's probably more.

The tradition of paying a child for their first lost baby tooth dates back to at least the 13th century. This 'tand-fe'or tooth fee, is mentioned in the Eddas, the earliest written record of Norse and Northern European traditions.

For Norsemen, children's teeth were thought to bring good luck in battle, and warriors hung them on a string around their necks.

Children in some areas of mediaeval England were instructed to burn their baby teeth in order to avoid having to spend eternity searching for them in the afterlife. Elsewhere in Europe they had to be burned or buried because it was thought that if a witch got hold of them, it would give them total power over their owner.

The Tooth Fairy in modern Spain and Spanish-speaking South America becomes 'Perez the Mouse', who does exactly the same thing. In Italy, it's also a mouse, named Topolino. Same in France and French-speaking Belgium.

In parts of Scotland the mouse becomes a white fairy rat who purchases children's teeth with coins.

In some Asian countries, such as India, China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, when a child loses a tooth, it is customary for him or her to throw it away upwards if it came from the lower jaw, or downwards if it came from the upper jaw. While doing this, the child shouts a request for the tooth to be replaced with the tooth of a mouse.

All these mouse references may be based on the fact that rodents have only one set of very strong teeth which last their lifetime.

There's also a tradition of throwing a baby tooth into the air in some Middle-Eastern countries - a gift to Allah.

While we may fondly remember the Tooth Fairy, dentists are another matter entirely.

Tooth decay has always been a problem and there's evidence that dentistry was practised over 14,000 years ago - an infected tooth found in Italy had been cleaned out with flint tools. Evidence from the Indus Valley indicates that 9000 years ago decaying teeth were drilled out with the tool used to make holes in stone beads - the string of a bow wrapped around a drill bit and moved back and forth.

The earliest known dental filling, made of beeswax, was discovered in Slovenia and dates back some 6,500 years.

Classical Greek scholars, including Aristotle, wrote about dentistry, covering the sequence in which teeth grow, the treatment of decayed teeth and gum disease, extracting teeth with forceps, and using wires to stabilize loose teeth.

Ancient texts abound with recipes for dealing with toothache. Most were concoctions of plants - some with natural narcotic properties. A few were more exotic, containing Turn to Page 26 From Page 25 such ingredients as roasted earthworms and crushed spider's eggs. One even involved putting a live frog in the mouth for a few minutes to eat the 'toothworms' which were widely believed to cause the decay. In Victorian England people used an array of refined and addictive narcotics like morphine, laudanum, opium and cocaine, all widely available.

People had been repairing teeth for 10,000 years before inventing false teeth.

Archaeological remains from China, dating back 4,000 years, show carved bamboo pegs had been tapped into the jawbone to replace lost teeth. 2000-yearold remains from Egypt show pegs made of precious metals. Some Egyptian mummies were found with transplanted human teeth or false teeth made of ivory - although it's not certain whether these were inserted during life or after death in order to send the body to the afterlife in good shape. At a site in Honduras dating back to 600 AD, long before influences from abroad, the remains of a young woman showed three missing incisors replaced by pieces of carved sea shells, shaped to resemble teeth.

The ancient Romans made partial dentures out of human or animal teeth fastened together with gold bands.

Full sets of false teeth were invented in Japan around the early 16th century. Soft beeswax was inserted into the patient's mouth to create an impression, which was then filled with harder beeswax. This was used as a template for carving the dentures out of wood. Essentially the same procedure as is used today. Later, human teeth or teeth carved from ivory or animal horn were inserted into the wooden base.

In 18th century Europe, dentures were made using a metal frame, with a spring for when the mouth was opened, and teeth carved from animal bone. Around 1770 porcelain began to be used for the teeth because it could be moulded to any shape, given a natural colour and was hard-wearing. One of the major suppliers was Josiah Wedgwood. In 1820, London goldsmith Samuel Stockton began making high-quality porcelain dentures mounted on 18-carat gold plates. In the 1850s dentures began to be made from Vulcanite, a form of hardened rubber originally invented to make longer-lasting bicycle tyres, into which porcelain teeth were set.

But human teeth continued to be used - most notoriously 'Waterloo teeth', scavenged by looters from the bodies on the battlefield.

In Victorian England, most people could expect to have lost most of their teeth by their 40's. False teeth were very expensive. So well-off Victorian fathers, as a wedding present for their daughters, sometimes paid for all their teeth to be extracted and a set of dentures to be fitted as an insurance for the future.

If you want to learn more about the horrors of Victorian dentistry and have strong nerves, visit the reconstructed dental surgery at Beamish Open-Air Museum.

It took a long time for dentistry to be recognised as a profession, although the first dental textbook in English was published in 1685 - 'Operator for the Teeth' by Charles Allen. The work was usually performed by doctors, barbers, corner-shop practitioners or on a DIY basis. A popular way of extracting a painful infected tooth was to tie a piece of string round it, attach the other end to the handle of an open door and slam the door shut.

In this country, no formal qualifications were required to provide dental treatment until 1859 and it was only in 1921 that the practice of dentistry was limited to those who were professionally qualified in the subject.

Dental health seems to be improving, possibly due in part to the fact that a perfect set of gleaming white teeth is a musthave fashion accessory. Teenagers are happy to wear braces (invented by the Romans) for a while to this end.

CAPTION(S):

Placing a live frog in the mouth was an ancient remedy for toothache

Beeswax was used to make the earliest known dental filling

Some Egyptian mummies were found with false teeth made of ivory

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Publication:	The Journal (Newcastle, England)
Date:	May 30, 2019
Words:	1159
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