There’s a scene in the second Nicky Matthews Mystery, The Third Warrior (and, yes, I know it’s confusing—second in series, Third Warrior) where, of all things, George Washington’s false teeth come up.
A little back story on that scene: While visiting Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, a few years ago, the tour guide led everyone upstairs to Washington’s bedroom. On the side table next to Washington’s bed, for everyone to see, sat his false teeth, which seemed sad.
And this is where our story of Zirconium begins (SEE GRAPH ⬇️).
First, let’s chat about oral hygiene and people’s teeth displayed for beauty, power, and healing (1). The Ancient Mayans visited “dentists” to drill and cement gems into their teeth (2), teeth blackening in Southeast Asia (3), known in Japan known as Ohaguro (4), teeth filing by Vikings, possibly for identification (5), and teeth sharpening by the Mbendjele women of the Congo to attract a husband (6), and, of course, grillz (7).
Notice that many dental modifications had to do with beauty, which continues today—think straight (8), white (9) teeth.
We’ll come back to this in just a sec.
It’s now very well known that poor oral health is linked with some very serious health problems (10), but people nowadays rarely die from decayed teeth, though there are exceptions. As a comparison, anthropologists who studied the 2-million-year-old jaw found that the South African hominin it belonged to probably died of an abscess (11), as did this 26-year-old truck driver from Sacramento, CA (12).
Barber-Surgeons
A dental shift occurred once humans settled down to raise crops. Tooth decay accelerated based on wear from high fiber and grit from stone ground grains, and dental caries increased from starchy foods. It worsened still with the expanded growth of sugar cane and sugar production in medieval Southern Europe (13) in the 9th century.
We can start in the monasteries of the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. Many monks were required to maintain tonsures which mimicked the shaved head of St. Paul when he marked the end of a vow (Acts 18:18, 14). This meant the monks employed barbers, who had all the razors, knives, and metal tools not only for shaving, but for performing medical procedures—lancing boils, bloodletting to balance the humors, and amputations of limbs.
Although they were first mentioned in writing around the year 1000 A.D., Barber-Surgeons gained true recognition in the thirteenth century (15) when the college of St. Cosme was established in Paris.
But because sugar was expensive, it was initially only affordable to the very rich, which turned out to be the “nobility” class of Europe, including royalty, and the cavities and decay, and rot that swept the courts of Europe and England were devastating for the beauty requirement of their teeth. Lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg) in medications, housewares, and cosmetics weren’t necessarily great for teeth, either (16). So, something very interesting occurred: the rise of the Barber Surgeon.
There, members were divided into two categories: the long robes—who could perform surgeries—and the short robes—who could only perform surgeries if they took and passed a special examination. Eventually, barber-surgeons were relegated back to minor medical procedures, shaving, and pulling teeth—like Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (17).
Pie, anyone? 🥧
Let’s get back to the tooth pulling
Although it could be one tooth, people might lose many, many teeth over the years. George Washington started losing his teeth at age 25, and only had a single, natural tooth in his mouth when he was inaugurated as president (18). Historians believe a mercury-chloride medication called calomel (19), used to treat smallpox, contributed to his tooth loss. So Washington used specially fitted dentures made from hippopotamus ivory and human teeth. The ivory was shaped to look like human teeth, but where did the human teeth come from?
It turns out that teeth have been a hot commodity for centuries for making partial and full dentures for people like Washington. It is possible some of the teeth used for his dentures came from his own mouth, some from the dead, and some purchased from enslaved people (20).
Buying “parts” like teeth and hair from living people wasn’t new (think O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi (1905) (21) or Fantine in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables(1862) (22, 23), nor was scavenging and selling teeth from soldiers killed on battlefields like Waterloo (called Waterloo teeth, 24) and during the American Revolutionary and Civil Wars.
But a barber-surgeon-dentist needed live teeth for transplantation. So, they paid for teeth from the poor to transplant into the gaping jaws of the rich (25). And it worked! Sometimes. Called allotransplantation (26), there are reports from as early as 1562 that teeth moved from one person to another lasted in place for up to six years. But diseases like untreated syphilis cut allotransplantation short, so new methods of transplantation needed to be developed, and that’s where we come back to Zirconium! Finally.
Zirconium
Zirconium (Zr) , first identified as an element in 1789, is a lustrous silvery metal with an atomic number of 40 (27). Zirconium is derived from the Persian zargun, which means, like gold. It’s actually the 18th most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust, but isn’t found in a native form, but in over a hundred different minerals. It doesn’t have any biological roles and isn’t a carcinogen, so that’s good. It is used in the construction of nuclear reactors, in turbine blades, and in spacecraft because it’s very heat resistant (1855 °C or 3371 °F). It’s also been used in flashbulbs (remember those?), deodorant, and—drumroll, please …
Dental implants (28)! Not as pure zirconium, but as the non-metallic, ceramic zirconium dioxide, also called zirconia. Zirconia implants are non-allergenic, custom-made, and tooth-colored, unlike titanium implants, which are grayish but less expensive. No more hippo ivory, or human teeth bought from enslaved or poor people, or harvested from the dead. Which loops us back to the second Nicky Matthews book.
You’ll have to read The Third Warrior to see the author’s (and Nicky’s) reaction to Washington’s false teeth and how she integrated them into the mystery. But I can tell you how it was written: at a local coffee shop, thinking of her mother and grandmother, and knowing she would trade every object she valued for just one more day with them.
SEE GRAPH
Life is not a straight line.
It’s complex, messy, and at times,
Resembles a knotted string,
Or circular thing
That leads us far away
From that path we’d thought to follow
From that voice that demands, obey.
Chlorine, Pigeons and Gas Masks, and the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery
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