Discretionary
Disclaimer:
The characters, places, events
depicted in this articulate creation are purely fictional which are based on
non fictional ideas & incidences. Any factual resemblance & relation,
if found, to any of such characters, places, events has to be purely
coincidental & also unintentional.
Also several caricatures &
cartoons, animated or otherwise depicted in this article are for
representational purpose & does not bear any commercial or advertisement connection;
nor any attempt of creating awareness or some ‘issued in public interest’ kindda
stuff.
So off lately, again having struck
off with an unusual theme & track while counting & staring on to the teeth,
without any special reason or occasion or even for the sake of revolving thoughts
around to write something; so chewing, biting & churning the words, around
thirty two times in countless ways, so as to digest & to create yet again
another articulate creation.
Moving back simply to creatively
carve out the words on the teeth & fill in the cavity gaps, coating the
bleeding gums, glossing & piercing throughout. When it comes to teeth; brushing
rigorously, rubbing, rather scrubbing with hell lot accessories of tooth pastes
ranging from anti sensitive, anti oxidant, ingredients containing fluoride, anti
calculus, anti plaque, whitening specialist etc; with toothbrushes designed to
be firm, soft bristled &
even extra-soft bristled long & short strokes, just to wipe out anything
& everything & needless to point out the flavors of toothpaste; be it crystals,
salt, mint, sugar free, chocolate & many such ice cream tastes. New
addition to the shelf of accessories is concentrated liquid used as mouth rinse
& wash; bubbling with luke warm to keep all day long fresh. Even the
chocolates & chewing gum have been designed least to erode but to brighten
up the teeth & reduce the chances of tooth decay.
Visiting a small saloon at a
corner side, under a tree or be it a professionally run saloon (habib chachu); most
of us intentionally expect rather strongly aspire to walk out of the saloon; as
if the spotlight ought to be over the head & the crowded streets seems to
take a glance at the new hairstyle (be it peculiarly different or spectacularly
adorable & vivacious).
This one, unusually are the fictional
& non fictional experiences of couple of hours at a dentist; a place where charges
are billed on the volume & pitch of screams & the number of visits in a
year are directly proportional to the number of patients awaiting for check up
at a given point of time. The bizarre & instinctive err feeling after
entering in to dentist; is something like stucking up in a roller coaster with echoing
screams & turmoils in the stomach.
The ambience is barely dreadly enough
to think about accidental breaking of teeth, sprouting blood all over a small
cut, forcing onto the jaws & chin to open wide like a dinosaur. Having
firmly taken seat on one of the mechanized chairs; just closing the eyes &
playing by the words in the back of the mind & conscience…..
Keenly observing the business,
emotions, feelings, sensitivity, ethical pressures & such impersonal
parameters to be associated & interlinked with ‘teeth’. The very first
glimpses of the commercials to be impressive & dashing by having a ‘Colgate
Smile’; or simply uttering Cheese or Paneer while taking snap & until the
right mood is captured with the ‘best & perfect smiling teeth’
Welcome to ‘The world of teeth’;
undoubtedly the place of undiscovered
pearls; except for the medical terminologies & experiments, which
are carried out as part of Hippocratic Oath; for sake of assignments, projects,
inventions & specimen tests & researches etc.
So, having come across on to the
different sizes, patterns, shades; be it fainted, bright, faded or hell lot
colors at different points of time; when it comes to giving a killing instinct,
wide opening of the windows & doorways, shyful or even aggressive smile. Teeth,
as a sole factor has its own distinctive persona; which has innumerous senses
such as sensitive itching, swelling, piercing, tittering teeth in fear, anger,
frustration or simply depression.
Meanwhile, exercising long
& short breathes & holding onto breathes; while synchronizing with the
pumping devices & gadgets, perspiring through the senses……
The classic legends of the tooth fairy;
sprouted thoughts of a fairy that gives a child gifts in exchange for a baby
tooth that has fallen out. Children typically place the tooth under their
pillow at night. The fairy is said to take the tooth from under the pillow
& replace it with gift in kind once they have fallen asleep.
Technically ‘teeth’ of humans are small, calcified, hard, whitish
structures found in the mouth. They function in mechanically breaking down items of food by cutting & crushing them in preparation for
swallowing & digestion. The roots of teeth are embedded in the maxilla (upper jaw) or the mandible (lower jaw) & are
covered by gums. Teeth are made of
multiple tissues of varying density & hardness.
Teeth
are among the most distinctive (& long-lasting) features of mammal species. Humans, like other mammals, are diphyodont, meaning that they
develop two sets of teeth. The first set (also called the "baby",
"milk", "primary", & "deciduous" set) normally
starts to appear at about six months of age, although some babies are born with
one or more visible teeth, known as neonatal teeth. Normal tooth eruption at about six months is
known as ‘teething’.
Deciduous
teeth,
otherwise known as baby teeth,
are the first set of teeth in the
growth development of humans & many other mammals. In some Asian countries
they are referred to as ‘fall teeth’
as they will eventually fall out, while in almost all European languages they
are called ‘milk teeth’.
They develop during
the embryonic stage
of development & erupt that is, they become visible in the mouth during
infancy. They
are usually lost & replaced by permanent teeth, but
in the absence of permanent replacements, they can remain functional for many
years.
Unlike most mammals, which grow baby
teeth & then replace them with a single permanent set of adult teeth,
elephants have cycles of tooth rotation throughout their entire lives. The
tusks have milk precursors, which fall out quickly & the adult tusks are in
place by one year of age, but the chewing teeth are replaced five or very
rarely, six times in an elephant's lifetime.
A
shark tooth is one of the
numerous teeth of a shark. Sharks continually shed their teeth, & some Carcharhiniformes shed approximately
35,000 teeth in a lifetime. In some geological formations, shark's teeth are a
common fossil; which can be analyzed
for information on shark evolution & biology, especially because the
teeth are often the only part of the shark to be fossilized, in fact fossil
teeth comprise much of the fossil record of the Selachimorpha, extending back
hundreds of millions of years.
The shape of sharks' teeth vary
according to their diet; those species that feed on mollusks & crustaceans
have dense flattened teeth for crushing, those that feed on fish have needle-like
teeth for gripping, & those that feed on larger prey such as mammals have
pointed lower teeth for gripping & triangular upper teeth with serrated
edges for cutting. The teeth of plankton-feeders such as the basking shark are
greatly reduced & non-functional.
Various
cultures have conventional customs relating to the loss of deciduous teeth.
These were most commonly associated with mice or other rodents on account of
their sharp, everlasting teeth.
In
Britain, lost teeth were commonly burnt to destroy them. This was partly for
religious reasons connected with the ‘Last
Judgment’
& partly for fear of what might happen if an animal got them.
A
rhyme is also said as a blessing:
Old
tooth, New tooth; Pray God send me a new tooth!!..
In
India, as well, young
children offer their discarded baby teeth to the sun, sometimes wrapped in a
tiny rag of cotton turf. In southern India, children bury their teeth in the
soil hoping for a newer one to grow. The Sri Lankan tradition is to throw
the milk teeth onto the roof or a tree in the presence of a squirrel. The child
then tells the squirrel to take the old tooth in return for a new one.
The
Indian Medical Association (I.M.A.),
the national organization of “Doctors of Modern Scientific System of Medicine”,
was established in 1928, & currently IMA has around 1,78,000 members
belonging to different branches of medical profession & functions through a
network of more than 1700 local branches, located in different parts throughout
India.
Tooth
tradition present in the United States sometimes comes under
different names. A Ratón Pérez appeared in the tale of the Vain Little
Mouse.
The Ratoncito Pérez was used by Colgate marketing in Venezuela & Spain. In Italy, the Tooth Fairy (Fatina)
is also often replaced by a small mouse (topino).
In France & in
French-speaking Belgium, this character is
called la petite souris
("The Little Mouse"). From parts of lowland Scotland comes a tradition
similar to the fairy mouse: a white fairy rat that purchases the teeth with
coins. In some places in Australia & Norway, the children put the tooth in a glass of water. In
medieval Scandinavia there was a tradition, surviving to the present day in
Iceland, of tannfé
('tooth-money'), a gift to a child when it cuts its first tooth.
Moving back to the
technicalities, enamel is the hardest & most highly mineralized substance
of the body. It is one of the four major tissues which make up the tooth, along
with dentin, cementum, &
dental pulp. It is
normally visible & must be supported by underlying dentin. 96% of enamel
consists of mineral, with water & organic material comprising the rest.
Suspecting for smoking habits,
tobacco & other such deadly stuffs; is likely possible in case, yellow
tarnished teeth have a peculiar bad odour. Tooth abnormalities may be
categorized according to whether they have environmental or developmental
causes. While
environmental abnormalities may appear to have an obvious cause, there may not
appear to be any known cause for some developmental abnormalities.
Environmental forces may affect
teeth during development, destroy tooth structure after development, discolor
teeth at any stage of development, or alter the course of tooth eruption.
Developmental abnormalities most commonly affect the number, size, shape, &
structure of teeth.
Tooth
destruction after development from processes is considered a normal physiologic
process but may become severe enough to become a pathologic condition & the
study of dental trauma is called dental traumatology.
Attrition is the loss of tooth
structure by mechanical forces from opposing teeth. Attrition initially
affects the enamel &, if unchecked, may proceed to the underlying dentin.
Abrasion is the loss of tooth
structure by mechanical forces from a foreign element. If this force begins at
the cement enamel junction, then progression of tooth loss can be rapid since
enamel is very thin in this region of the tooth. A common source of this type
of tooth wear is excessive force when using a toothbrush.
Erosion is the loss of tooth
structure due to chemical dissolution by acids not of bacterial origin. Signs of tooth
destruction from erosion are a common characteristic in the mouths of people
since vomiting results in exposure of
the teeth to gastric acids. Another important source of erosive acids is from
frequent sucking of lemon juice.
Abfraction is the loss of tooth structure from flexural
forces. As teeth flex under pressure, the arrangement of
teeth touching each other, known as occlusion, causes tension on one side of the
tooth & compression on the other side of
the tooth. This is believed to cause V-shaped depressions on the side under
tension & C-shaped depressions on the side under compression. When tooth
destruction occurs at the roots of teeth, the process is referred to as internal resorption, when caused by cells
within the pulp, or external resorption, when caused by cells
in the periodontal ligament.
Discoloration of teeth may result
from bacteria stains, tobacco, tea, coffee, foods with an abundance of chlorophyll, restorative materials,
& medications. Stains from bacteria
may cause colors varying from green to black to orange. Green stains also
result from foods with chlorophyll or excessive exposure to copper or nickel.
Amalgam, a common dental restorative material, may turn adjacent areas of teeth
black or gray. Long term use of chlorhexidine, a mouthwash may
encourage extrinsic stain formation near the gingiva on teeth.
Systemic
disorders also can cause tooth discoloration. Some medications, such as tetracycline antibiotics, may become incorporated into the structure of
a tooth, causing intrinsic staining of the teeth.
Lastly in the bottom line, the
broken teeth is very exhausted & seems to be dwindling after having
digested more than couple of thousand words in a go. So, having brightened,
exercised the ‘teeth’; over petty stuffs; be it the human baby teeth, tusks of
giant elephant; shark tooth, etc. The very next time, you watch out into the
mirror, you ought to stare at your very own ‘smiling teeth’ with an appealing
& impressive smile!!....
~Thank You~
