PARIS -- Throw out your brick dust toothpaste and forget about lancing your ears to ease the pain from rotting molars.
Frenchman Pierre Fauchard dismisses these and other common oral health practices in his new book "The Surgeon Dentist," due in stores this week. Fauchard, 50, has crammed his treatise with decades of his own observations on toothy issues from decay to dentures, showing why some of his colleagues have dubbed him the "father of modern dentistry". The book's 400-plus pages make up what some say is the first authoritative volume dedicated to scientifically tested dental theories.
The Brittany native says he was inspired to record his own thoughts on tooth and gum care after seeing the sometimes grotesque results of contemporary dentistry.
"I warn the reader that there may be exist people above all those who do not trouble to acquaint themselves with the difficulties of the dental art, who will not trouble to read this manual," Fauchard writes.
In the book's fifth chapter, "How to keep the Teeth White and to Strengthen the Gums," Fauchard warns against some popular techniques:
"Opiates, powders and moutwashes in ordinary use for cleaning or whitening the teeth would be more likely to harm them than be good for them. I must undeceive the public by pointing out the incompatibles contained in the mixtures which portend to clean the teeth and at the same time to give a list of those which do good.
"Opiates which contain brick dust should never be used, nor those containing...pumice, or any ingredients of this nature. When such drugs are used they wear away the teeth and roughen them by degrees as if they have been filed."
Instead, Fauchard promotes the use of another mixture he claims is more effective for generating an ivory smile and less likely to wear down teeth.
The recipe includes common products available from the village apothecary, such as red coral, dragon's blood and tears, sea pearls and cuttlefish bones.
"This mixture is put together and stirred once or twice with a wooden spatula. If desired, four or five drops of oil of cinnamon -- or as much of oil of cloves -- may be added, which will increase the sweetness of the perfume and the virtue of it. The opiate is admirable for cleaning and whitening the teeth strengthening and hardening the gums," Fauchard writes.
This concoction also works well when rubbed on the teeth and gums according to the author.
"To keep the teeth and preserve them and the gums, take a piece of this opiate as large as a pea on a fine sponge. Rub the teeth from below upwards and above downwards, outside and inside, once or twice a week. If the gums need strengthening, take a little on the end of the finger and rub them twice or three times a day for eight or 10 days consecutively. "
Fauchard also offers tips for advanced decay and rot, ailments known in dentistry circles as caries.
In the book's eighth chapter on tooth decay, Fauchard warns against an often-prescribed treatment for throbbing inner ear pain, which he claims is caused by rotten molars. The popular treatment of ear-lancing, administered by several dentists (and even a Turkish clockmaker in Paris) does not get to the root of the problem, though it may offer temporary relief.
"Most of those who put themselves in his hands were afterwards obliged to come to me to relieve them of their sufferings," Fauchard writes. "I have seen since several other persons use the same remedy with little success."
And the days of using porous cork to fill cavities are long gone, he says. Though gold has positioned itself as the filling of choice for Paris' well-to-do toothache sufferers, tin and lead work just as well and cost less.
For the temporary relief of toothache pain, Fauchard offers a less invasive, though also less palatable technique than ear-lancing.
"It consists of rinsing the mouth every morning and also before going to bed with a spoonful of one's own urine immediately after it has been emitted, always provided the individual be not ill, he writes.
Though this remedy will be a tough sell, "The Surgeon Dentist" just might have a lasting impression on dentistry for years to come.
