pictures to prompt thought and discussion about teeth
This picture is from the British Dental Institute’s collection. The poster highlights the high number of dental extractions in children; 4 tonnes in 1960. The figure is now only 1 tonne of teeth per year, but most of these extractions are now done in hospitals under GA.
This is a jar of children’s teeth that have been extracted because of decay in 2018.
What does this say about children diets and access to dentistry and dental advice?
books to prompt thought and discussion about teeth
The Smile Stealers – The fine and foul art of dentistry Richard Barnett (2017)
I discovered this book when I visited the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition about teeth in 2018. If you are interested in the history and development of dentistry it’s a great read.
poems to prompt thought and discussion about teeth
This is by Pam Ayres, I remember her reading it on TV.
I wish I’d looked after my teeth
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth,
And spotted the dangers beneath
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food.
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.
I wish I’d been that much more willin’
When I had more tooth there than fillin’
To give up gobstoppers,
From respect to me choppers,
And to buy something else with me shillin’.
When I think of the lollies I licked
And the liquorice allsorts I picked,
Sherbet dabs, big and little,
All that hard peanut brittle,
My conscience gets horribly pricked.
My mother, she told me no end,
‘If you got a tooth, you got a friend.’
I was young then, and careless,
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.
Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,
But up-and-down brushin’
And pokin’ and fussin’
Didn’t seem worth the time – I could bite!
If I’d known I was paving the way
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fillin’s,
Injections and drillin’s,
I’d have thrown all me sherbet away.
So I lie in the old dentist’s chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine
In these molars of mine.
‘Two amalgam,’ he’ll say, ‘for in there.’
How I laughed at my mother’s false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath.
But now comes the reckonin’
It’s methey are beckonin’
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.
Page created May 2019