Book review

  • C. Jones
Oxford University Press price $22.99; pp 231 ISBN 9780198715818 | ISBN: 978-0-1987-1581-8

This is an interesting book written by Colin Jones, Professor of History at Queen Mary University of London. His passion for his subject is clear throughout the book and his knowledge on eighteenth century French healthcare is certainly expansive and impressive. He has paid attention to the artwork and literary texts of the times and described how the people, mainly women, were influenced by them.

This charming book is laid out in six chapters, with an additional post-script and handy 'notes' section which is referenced throughout the chapters. Mr Jones starts out by describing 'The Old Regime of Teeth' and the social etiquettes of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in the court of Louis XIV, with the smile being generally frowned upon, and many choosing to stay 'tight-lipped' due to the unattractiveness of tooth decay, gum disease, bad breath, or the dreaded 'black-hole'. The next chapter, 'The Smile of Sensibility', deals with the aftermath of King Louis XIV's death and the emergence of smiling in artwork and drama, which for the first time displayed teeth and brought with it an 'emblem of identity'. The chapter smoothly links onto the next and 'Cometh the Dentist' which heralds the advent of dentistry and the makings of the profession we would recognise today. The fourth chapter deals with the beginnings of the smile revolution with the new dentists more keen on providing preventative treatment in a surgery setting rather than the perceived quick-fix of an extraction by the infamous tooth pullers on the Pont Neuf. The final two chapters cover the arrival of the revolution in 1789 which unfortunately was to be short lived as by 1793 jovial smiles were disappearing due to the advent of the Terror. Life was to continue this way until the twentieth century revolutionary comeback led by the USA and the emergence of 'Hollywood' smiles.

All in all, this book is well written, clearly well researched and nicely presented with the occasional illustration. I would say it is aimed at those interested in the history of dentistry and how we, as a profession, came to be, and as such could be assumed to be for a niche market. In an age where everyone is after the 'Hollywood' smile, it is interesting to read through the origins of a smile that was once so elusive. A fascinating read.