Dentistry’s rotten roots
QUESTION What is the earliest description of a dental procedure? Who was the first professional dentist?
The earliest known patient who was treated for dental caries (tooth decay) was Villabruna, a late upper Palaeolithic man from 14,000 years ago.
This is the name given by archaeologists for remains found in an ancient burial site in northern Italy. he appears to have had tooth decay scratched away with a flint scraper.
The Mehrgarh burial site in western Pakistan dates to between 7,500 and 9,000 years ago, and is believed to be the oldest Stone Age complex in the Indus River valley. There is evidence of 11 drilled molars from a sample of 300 individuals. The budding dentists used a flint point attached to a bow to make a Stone Age version of a high-speed drill.
A beeswax filling was discovered in a 6,500-year-old human tooth in Slovenia.
Dentistry was performed widely in egyptian times. hesy-Re, an egyptian scribe from 2600 BC, is described as being the first true dentist. The ebers papyrus, dated 1700 BC to 1550 BC, describes various remedies for toothache.
A Babylonian tablet, The Legend Of The Worm, talks of tooth worms which drink the blood and eat the roots of teeth. This may have been an ancient way of describing a bacterial infection, though artistic models of teeth featuring worms suggest it was often taken literally.
In the West, dentistry became a profession in the Middle Ages. A Guild of Barbers was established in France in 1210, and barber-surgeons performed routine hygienic services including shaving, bleeding and tooth extraction.
In 1530, the first dental book for barbers was published by Artzney Buchlein in Germany. It contained practical information on extraction, drilling and fillings.
Professional dentistry began to develop in the 18th century, with many advances made in the 19th century.
The American Journal of Dental Science began publication in 1839.
The world’s first dental school, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, was founded in 1840, and its graduates were given the Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) degree. The Royal Dental hospital of London, Britain’s first dental school, was founded in 1858.
Charles Avery, Shrewsbury, Shropshire.
QUESTION What determines the spacing and speed of the ripples produced when a stone is dropped into a still pond?
The processes that govern the movement of ripples in a pond are complex.
Waves disperse at a set speed due to gravity, the depth of water and the density and surface tension of the water. The amplitude of the wave is affected by the size of the stone.
Two types of wave are generated when a stone is dropped into water.
Gravity waves are the most visible. Dropping a stone into a pond causes water to rise above the equilibrium surface level, gravity pulls it back down, inertia acquired during the falling movement causes the water to penetrate below its level of equilibrium and a bouncing motion results.
Gravity waves move horizontally because when a parcel of water rises somewhere above the surface, the added weight of this water creates a pressure that is locally higher than normal.
This pressure anomaly accelerates the fluid away from that place and piles it up a little further, generating another surface rise some distance away.
Water motion under a surface wave is nearly oscillatory, with almost no net displacement. Surface waves are a mechanism by which the fluid moves energy from one area to another without involving any significant movement of the fluid itself. A leaf suspended in the water will not move outwards with the apparent wave motion.
Capillary waves are also formed when a stone deforms the surface layer of the water, which acts like an elastic membrane that pushes back against the falling object. Surface tension supplies the restoring force that strives to flatten the surface of the water.
A combination of gravity and capillary waves creates the familiar ripple effect.
H. D. Singh, Bedford.
QUESTION Who was Raja Ram Mohan Roy, whose statue is near Bristol Cathedral?
ThIS humanist and religious reformer was born in Bengal on May 22, 1772. he travelled widely and mastered several languages including Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic and english in addition to his native Bengali and hindi.
A successful businessman and prolific writer, Roy published in Bengali and english. his liberal opinions helped modernise India, where he is revered.
In 1828, he founded the Brahmo Samaj (Divine Society), a hindu reformist sect that embraced monotheistic and Unitarian beliefs. Roy’s protests against sati, the ritual burning of widows on their husbands’ funeral pyre, enabled Lord William Bentinck, the Governor-General of India, to abolish the practice in 1829.
At about the same time, on behalf of Akbar II, the Mughal ruler of India, Roy became the first Indian intellectual to sail to europe, which had been strictly forbidden by hindu tradition. he was received in england by William IV.
Roy visited Bristol at the invitation of a Unitarian minister and died there suddenly from meningitis in 1833, aged 61.
his tomb is one of the most striking in Bristol’s Arnos Vale cemetery. It was designed by William Prinsep, a merchant from Clifton, in the style of a Bengali chattri, or funeral monument.
The statue of Roy, by Niranjan Sarkar, was unveiled on College Green, near Bristol Cathedral, in 1997.
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