GAP Australasian-Dentist-Mar Apr 2019

Category 132 AustrAlAsiAn Dentist Jade Richardson By Jade Richardson P raise for the pot plants, the earth- coloured cushions, the flower arrangements and fish tanks that are the heart of the dental practice, the talismans of our ancestors – and perhaps the keepers of our future, a well. Oh boy, things have got fancy, haven’t they? Just flicking through these pages up to here – at the back of the magazine – is like a micro journey through an alternative, sterile and future-addicted universe in technological, financial, scientific, chemical, laser and every other sort of dental whiz bangery. the modern dentist has become something of an astronaut. traveling at warp speed through endless ‘revolutions’ and ‘horizons’ in science and innovation, into the perfected, re-engineered, ultra- white and symmetrical mouth of a man- made cosmos. His spacecraft is his own surgery. Decked out in science Fiction chic. the new white for dental interior design could be called immaculate – a sort of 22nd Century ultra-perfect halogen shade of know-how, with just a touch of opaque, to shelter the fragile earthling from a direct gaze at the godhead of super-tech behind the scenes. there’s a touch of earth tone, of course. Designers ‘earth’ surgeries with shades of forest, shades of mud, shades of... shade, really, to remind them – yes, you’re headed into the hands of dentists using technology, and a medical theatrics reminiscent of what might have sent the mythical Atlanteans into another dimension, but it’s ok, relax – we’re still on Planet earth… just. Pot plants help. they are there to ‘soften’ the laser-like lines and streamlines of our spaces, tools and uniforms, and flow lines of dental worlds that are becoming as hyper-engineered as the mouths we treat, as the schedules we keep, as the science we keep up with, as the image we’re creating. Pot plants are there to comfort us. Because we all know, and dentists in modern city environments know better than most other medical professionals, as the research into stress is showing, that realIty BItes Roots And soul food, which is why we buy them! they are the living (or imitation living) totems of the actual roots of dentistry. Of where it all begin. With sticks. And flowers. And ash. And tools, pastes, drugs and even surgical spaces made of the raw materials of planet earth. the ancient egyptians fashioned primitive toothbrushes from twigs and branches. But they were light years from the bushmen of the Kalahari, who had known for all of humanity’s struggle out of the trees and onto the plains, that some of the most dazzling, thriving, immaculate or smiles could be maintained by picking long, elegant thorns from trees, and chewing on the various roots, flowers and barks that nature had provided. Without need for packaging. Free. in early China emerged the closest thing to a modern toothbrush, made from bamboo and boar bristles. According to archaeologists and anthropologists, it is reasonable to assume that these devices worked rather well. You don’t need historians to find evidence that nature’s pharmacy worked, and still is working. in many nations still, there are those who use flowers, ash and herbs for their oral health. As long as soft drinks, sweetened yogurts, packaged food and drugs don’t enter their food chains, these populations almost always stagger travellers and photographers with the kinds of smiles that only what we call poverty can produce – radiant, and natural ones, which easily eclipse even the most technically brilliant of those artificially engineered. thepharmacopeiaof dental technology that has been forever tucked into the forests, woods, plains and beaches of the ancient earth medicine chest include ash, burnt eggshells, crushed animal bones, the tiny and prolific yellow flower, spilanthes, cinnamon, myrrh, sea salt, baking soda and all sorts of other freely available and scientifically valid choices. these are emerging in surging new markets in oral health, as consumers Continued page 134 perfection and revolution take a toll on the soul. Yes, pot plants really do help. especially real ones! though their more perfect and less dependent successors artificial ones, make a difference too. Plants are being ever more suspected by scientists to have effects and biological benefits to space and psyche more profound than we ever dared to imagine – when we were busy hacking down the ecosphere to progress toward perfection. When we departed from our roots as earthling creatures, made and bound by the living world, and set off into the future – leaving our living world behind us, in search for …. Well, we’re all not so sure these days really, what we’re actually in search for. Are we? it turns out, in dentistry, and most other professions, the humble pot plant that may (and probably should) be the totem of your surgical space – whether it’s one of those kinda surgical looking orchid things, which say style and glamour and hint at forces wild and ancient, without taking up too much time in care, or one of those tropical palm type numbers, which do the same sort of thing, with a more masculine, junglish sort of flair – are actually far more than comfort plants, or design features. they’re mascots, really of where this all began.