If you are anything like me, then your first thought when the dentist is mentioned is one of grimace rather than joy. Thoughts of Laurence Olivier in ‘The Marathon Man’, where he played an ex-Nazi dentist who tortures Dustin Hoffman’s character as he tries to hide his identity from the world, flash before my eyes!. Fortunately, the association with dentists and pain is now mainly historic and stems from the evolution of the profession rather than the experience you are likely to encounter today.

There have also been some colorful characters through history who have adorned the title dentist. Most notable amongst them was Dr John Henry Holliday or ‘Doc Holliday’ as he was better known.

Born in Georgia in 1851, John Holliday was the son of a prominent Georgian who served as a Major during the war between the states. His familys’ prominence meant John was forced to choose a profession and he entered dental school in 1870 graduating from the Pensylvanian college of dental surgery in 1872. He practiced briefly in Atlanta, before being diagnosed with tuberculosis which forced his move to a drier climate and the start of his infamous life as a gambler and gunslinger in the western states. His most notorious years came with his association with the Earp family and its showdown with the Clantons at the OK Corall on October 26th 1881. Eventually, the tuberculosis got the better of him and he died in a sanatorium in Glenwood Springs, California on November 8th 1887 from the disease that he had tried so hard to outwit.

As the profession of dentistry has evolved it has become increasingly specialised. In the US you can now find nine distinct fields of dentistry. Many of these are self explanatory, Perodontics, for example, being the study and treatment of the periodontium. This is the tissue surrounding the teeth and literally means ‘around the tooth’. Periodontics also covers the maintenance and positioning of implants.

Cosmetic dentistry, whilst not a board certified speciality combines the skills of several specialities including Periodontics, Prosthodontics and Oral and Maxillofacial surgery. In addition to this a cosmetic dentist will also deal with issues such as whitening of the teeth, bonding, veneers and gum lifts. It is a combination of all these areas that produce the results of a cosmetic dentist which is the alteration of teeth and gums for a positive aesthetic result.

Today, a visit to the dentist is very different to the experience of only twenty-five years ago. Procedures today are painless, for the most part!, and advances in the materials used in dental surgery mean that it is possible to achieve near perfect results. It is possible these days to alter a smile, shape and sculpt the gum-line to produce straighter, longer teeth. Some of this work can be restorative following accidents or to correct developmental problems. It can also be used to build self confidence in those who find their teeth a source of embarrassment.

For my part, I will always carry those memories of my earliest visits to the dentist and will always purport to the best dental treatment as brushing your teeth thoroughly at least twice a day!

About the Author

Kissdental is a specialist in cosmetic dentist London England. Recently based in Harley Street Kissdental is renowned for its cosmetic dentistry, smile makeovers, veneers and dental implants

Photography as a process goes back many hundreds of years but it was not until a Frenchman, Louis Daguerre continuing the work of his late business partner, Nicephore Niepce combined the use of mercury vapour and fixing salts to produce a process that we today still recognize as the first photographs. His discoveries, announced in 1839 are still part of the process used today in Polaroid photography today.

The process was refined by many of the next few decades until George Eastman made a breakthrough with his patent for a photo emulsion film in 1884 rapidly followed in 1888 with the first patented camera. The same year, the Kodak Company was founded. Its first camera cost $15, a lot of money in 1888. By 1900 Eastman introduced the Brownie at a cost of just $1 and the world of mass photography was born.

Since that day, it has not been the process as much as what the camera captured that has held us captivated across the years. The statement that “The Camera Never Lies” is probably destined to the history books with the invention of the digital era, although there are many examples of the use of trick photography to fool the eye ever since the camera was first put into the public domain.

As early as 1917 and the case of the Cottingley fairies, the photograph has been used to twist the perception of its audience. In the Cottingley hoax, two girls, Fraces Griffiths and Elsie Wright purported to have taken photgraphs with fairies that lived at the stream at the bottom of the garden where Elsie and her parents lived. The photographs created a furore when published alongside an article by Arthur Conan Doyle, who, completely taken in by the fabrication, used it a proof that spirits existed and could be photographed.

It took over sixty years before the two girls, now elderly ladies finally came clean and told the world that the pictures were fakes. But for those sixty or so years, the world believed, well most of them, that the fairies were real.

Photographs have also been used on many occasion in an attempt to disprove a fact. Most notable amongst these attempts are the photographs of the Apollo Moon landings by conspiracy theorists who believe the landings never took place, and that the whole Apollo program took place on a Hollywood style set in the Nevada desert. The most famous of the images ‘proving’ their theory is that of the American flag which seems to be fluttering in a breeze. A breeze, of course, which would not exist on a moon with no atmosphere.

The most famous pictures taken by a private individual and still the cause of many conspiracy theorists today is the footage filmed on an 8mm home movie camera by Abraham Zapruder. The film, probably the best known 90 seconds of moving picture history, depicts, of course , the final moments of the life of then President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Shot from an elevated position above Dealey Plaza, the film was the primary source of evidence used by the Warren Commissions enquiry into the assasination an it is the footage of the third bullet hitting the president that caused many to speculate about the nature of the ‘lone gunman theory’ and the evidence of several gunman firing from the grassy knoll.

Today, with digital media, the camera nearly always lies. The ability to distort the digital image is available to everyone with a computer and the click of a mouse. The results can be as spectacular in their imagery as they are in their deception. They can bring humour and sorrow, change the fortunes of careers or bring news to the world. But for all the complexities of their electronic wizardry one thing is certain.The emotion, whether real or manufactured, portrayed by the still image, still manages to capture a moment in history that forever defies the passage of time.