Dental

Unlike skin and other parts of the human
body, teeth cannot heal themselves. 
No wonder dental work is always so 
expensive. A chipped tooth, a cracked 
tooth, a tooth fallen out of your mouth: 
a whole intricate history is behind 
procedures for putting back what can't 
be fixed on its own. In ancient Egypt 
and China, bones and shells were used 
as forms of implants. The earliest dental 
fillings were made of beeswax— imagine 
soft wax packed into crevices of your 
teeth, still humming with fuzz from 
the hive. At night, you'd brush 
your teeth with the ends of twigs or 
clumps of boar's hair dipped in a paste 
of ashes and burnt oyster shells bound 
with honey. Your dentist numbs your gums 
then tips the chair back. Lowering 
the overhead light, sometimes he likes 
to chat— except you can't respond while 
he's drilling. In the back of your mind, 
you remember reading about how 
it was a dentist who first invented 
the electric chair, as a way of making 
capital punishment more humane.