Volume 223 Issue 5, 8 September 2017
The Dentistry in Literature series: Memoirs of an Infantry Officer
For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered — from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth!
This issue's cover illustrates an extract from Memoirs of an Infantry Officer a novel by Siegfried Sassoon, first published in 1930. It's a fictionalised account of the author's own life during and right after WWI. The extract describes a retired civil servant, Mr Farrell, in his late seventies who, talking about wartime food restrictions in England, says: 'Sugar is getting scarce [...] but that doesn't affect me; my doctor has knocked me off sugar several years ago.' However, the story's narrator looks 'at his noticeably brown teeth' and remembers 'how Aunt Evelyn used to scold me for calling him "sugar-teeth"; his untidy teeth did look like lumps of sugar soaked in tea.'
Credit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka
bmentpass@yahoo.com
mlaznicka.com
Providing retro contemporary illustration and design to your idea!
Editorial
-
Advertisement
