Page 5 - Bulletin Vol 25 No 3 - Sept-Dec 2020 - Final

Message from Donald Hills, DDS

Editorial

Tolstoy’s Dentist

Thanksgiving was a small quiet affair this year. It was just the four of us. The
traditional “what we are thankful for” discussion had special meaning this year;
health and family togetherness topped the list. Simply to add to the discussion, I
asked who felt we would be better off in 50 years? What will our lives be like?
The existentialist in her, my daughter noted how the people who will most
influence the majority of her life (her children) have yet to be born, so how could
she imagine life in 2070? My son would hear nothing but how advanced and
better life will be. My wife mused will we be better off, or was perhaps 50 or even
150 years ago a better time?
Always playing the dental angle, I wonder what our profession will be like in 2070, or even 2170. Futurists
envision Nano-technology; where tiny robotic decay busters painlessly devour caries. Stem cell advances
will likely enable us to grow, in vitro, replacement teeth. Antibiotics will be developed, or the human immune
system triggered to fight the bacteria associated with dental disease. Streptococcus mutans and the gram-
negative anaerobes and spirochetes of periodontal disease may be eliminated. Controlled sensory
manipulation may reduce the anxiety of the dental experience. Will a robot place an implant in the time it
takes to anesthetize a patient? Will the robot administer the anesthetic? The dental experience of 2170 will,
no doubt, look nothing like today.
The conversation continued at the table and I shared some dental history. Dental treatment 150 years ago
took place by the front window, typically, a very large window indeed. Only there, with the sun illuminating
the “operatory” could a practitioner of that time actually see into the oral cavity. Today we reschedule
th
patients when the electricity is out, or our computers are down, in the mid-19 century patients were
rescheduled when it was cloudy outside. Leo Tolstoy’s dentist never scheduled a patient after sunset.
Imagine, no evening hours!

The poet Walt Whitman likely visited the dentist on only the brightest of Long Island days. His dentist, no
doubt, grumbled to Walt concerning his indentured servitude to the rubber barons of the day. I know little
about Whitman’s teeth, but if he wore a denture in the 1870’s, a fee was paid to Goodyear, or Firestone, or
Michelin, or whoever controlled the rubber trade at that time, to fabricate his prosthesis. The material was
tightly guarded by the soon to be tire companies and dentists of the day were outraged by the fee. Doesn’t
sound so different than today.
Tolstoy, when not visiting the dentist, wrote a thing or two. In his masterpiece, War and Peace (1870) he
penned “the progress of humanity, arising from an innumerable multitude of individual wills, is continuous in
motion.” Pretty true for dentistry as well. We are destined to advance our profession, my wife’s desire for a
simpler time may be charming, but the science and art of dentistry will continue to progress. It is what we
do. The leap from Tolstoy’s dentist to GV Black, to Michael Buonocore, to Ingvar Branemark is remarkable.
Where we will go in the next five decades and beyond is inspiring. I will be there for some of the ride, my
children and grandchildren will experience the rest and what a wonder it will likely be.
Don

Editor-in-Chief
Nassau County Dental Society ⬧ (516) 227-1112 | 5