excerpt from Birth, Death and Other Trivialities
Hey history lovers. Did you know there was a dental crusade in the 11th century?
The excerpt:
Little is known about the dental crusades.
In or about the year 1087, the world was in its dark age. No Renaissance, nothing. But the practice of dentistry was flourishing in western Europe. If one followed prescribed dental practices, the average person had an expectancy of keeping all his teeth for ten, maybe fifteen years.
Meanwhile in the Holy Land, tooth care was virtually unknown. The great medieval Italian dentist, Dr. Antonio de Drillo, (whom dentistry hasn’t forgotten by naming an indispensable tool of the trade after him, namely, the toothbrush), wrote “Day a ruin de teeth because day eat a too much baklava … You know de baklava, de cake dat’s as flat as de world.” Dr. de Drillo was also a prominent medieval astronomer.
The Holy Land at the time was ruled by the fierce and bellicose Turks, who in fact did not practice dental care but banned it altogether, issuing an edict that anyone caught dental flossing would be publicly whipped with his own floss. This infuriated Pope Innocent whose nephew Yakov Ben Abraham was a dentist in Nazareth.
One thing led to another and in 1087 A.D., a group of dentists met with the Pope at Clermont in France. The meeting resulted in a resolution to launch a crusade to the Holy Land in order to bring dental care to the infidels.
Their motto was “No more holes in the Holy Land.” Whoever said dentists don’t have a sense of humor?
Dr. de Drillo then put a filling into one of the Pope’s teeth, whereupon he was promptly excommunicated; his bill was too high!
The dentists had to decide on what to wear as a symbol of their crusade. In accordance with the wishes of His Holiness, they agreed on a blue cross to be sewn on the front of their dental tunics. The cross, of course, represented the church and the blue represented the sky, the height of which Pope Innocent used to describe the current dental fees. Whoever said Popes don’t have a sense of humor?
The crusade was to have left in December of 1087, but it did not get going until May of 1088 as most of the dentists were on vacation. The Pope was annoyed by the delay. He sent messages to all of their offices, but their secretaries said they were on vacation, and if he needed treatment he ought to go the local barber.
The first crusade was led by that great English dentist, Peter Plier, D.D.S. (whom dentistry also hasn’t forgotten by naming another indispensable tool of the trade after him, namely, the drill).
The trip to the Holy Land was not without complications, as many of the dentists never made it past the Swiss Alps; they loved Switzerland so much they decided to stay.
Others had difficulties on the seas, their ships being attacked by pirates who would steal all of the silver fillings and use them for stud earrings. One ship of dentists mysteriously vanished, and it is believed to have drifted to the New World, probably Massachusetts. No one knows for sure, but to this day there is a village on Cape Cod where all the inhabitants have this inexplicable obsession to wash their hands constantly and say, “Open wide.”
When the crusading dentists finally made it to the Holy Land, they were met with fierce opposition. They besieged the City of Jerusalem and they did not let anyone in or out of the walled city without an appointment. This proved to be too much for the inhabitants and after several weeks the city fell to the dentists.
The crusaders did not stop there. They captured city after city and set up dental clinics throughout the Holy Land. The blue cross was everywhere.
The clinics were not fancy. The consisted of just a simple dental chair or two, surrounded by a massive crusader’s fortress to prevent gate crashing. Each clinic would have a dentist, one or two secretaries, and two burly dental assistants to chain the patient down. Tooth freezing had not yet been perfected. The odd clinic also employed a dental hygienist to hum.
One of the leading dentists was Paul The Painless of York. He was known as the father of orthodontia, having developed various braces for crooked teeth. The braces were crude, but then again, what would you expect in 1088 A.D.?
Paul’s experiments eventually led to his demise. One day his right index finger got stuck in a brace he had just fitted into the mouth of one of Sultan Saladin’s teenage wives, Salama. It was impossible to remove either the finger or the brace and after about two weeks, Saladin lost his patience and took drastic action, banishing both Painless and Salama from the Holy Land. Whoever said Saladin didn’t have a sense of humor?
After a few years, the idealism of the dental crusaders waned and they started feuding among themselves. They would sabotage one another’s clinics by booking appointments and not showing up. This would infuriate the secretaries who would respond by insulting and abusing the next patient who just happened to be walking in.
Many dentists simply became homesick for the amenities of home, including their friends and families, home cooking, the bubonic plague, etc.
Not surprisingly, most of the dentists returned home. And so ended the dental crusade.
Actually, there was a second but ill-fated and short-lived crusade in the year 1188 called the Children’s Crusade.
This involved thousands of European children who planned to march from Europe to the Holy Land to hand out toothbrushes and pamphlets on dental hygiene to local children. Unfortunately, they never made it as the Turks intercepted them at Constantinople and convinced them to return to Europe by giving them large bags of jelly beans.
For some reason I doubt this phase of dental history is taught in dental schools.
End of excerpt
Birth, Death and Other Trivialities, A Humorous Philosophical Look at the Human Condition, is available in eBook and paper versions on Amazon, Apple books etc., and wherever books are sold. Please click on books page to check out links for some of these sources.