Dentists love dental floss. Dentists have a saying, "You
don't have to floss all of your teeth, just the ones that you want to
keep".
Dental floss is a thread, usually nylon, which is also available as a tape. You
use it to clean the crevices in between your teeth, where the bristles of your
brush can't get to.
Dental floss has been around for a long time. Marks from dental floss have been
found in the teeth of early pre-humans, and American Indians.
But the modern re-inventor of dental floss was a New Orleans dentist called Levi
Spear Parmly. Back in 1815, he recommended that people should clean between
their teeth with a thin thread of silk.
The first commercially available dental floss was released by the Codman and
Shurtleft Company of Randolph, Massachusetts, in 1882. They made an unwaxed silk
floss. The Johnson & Johnson Company of New Jersey released their dental
floss in 1896, and took out their first patent for it in 1898. Their original
dental floss was made from the same silk as surgical sutures.
During the Second World War, Dr Charles C Bass, a medical doctor, realized that
nylon would have advantages over silk as a flossing material. Nylon could be
produced in great lengths, which all had a consistent diameter. It could be
supplied in different sizes, and had greater resistance to abrading and
shredding than silk.
Wax-coated dental floss was introduced in the 1940s, and dental floss in the
shape of a tape, rather than a thread, was introduced in the 1950s. This was
followed by flavored flosses (such as mint and cinnamon) and more recently,
various super synthetics such as Gortex and Teflon are being incorporated into
dental floss.
By 1996, American purchased over 4.3 million kilometers of dental floss per
year. Today you can get dental floss in all different shapes (from thread to
tapes), in different diameters (with or without fluffy stuff), and with
different amounts of wax and flavoring.
Dental floss has many uses. You can use it to slice cheese, remove biscuits that
are stuck to the baking biscuit sheet, repair a backpack or tent or winter
jacket when you're on the road, and if you're really obsessive, you can clean
the crevices in the turned legs of your wooden furniture. Anesthetists sometimes
use dental floss to secure the location of an endotracheal tube - the tie the
tube to a few teeth using dental floss.
But of course, the main use for dental floss is to clean those little nooks and
crevices between the teeth that you simply can't reach with your toothbrush. You
floss for the same reason that you brush your teeth - to mechanically remove the
build-up of bacteria from your teeth and gums.
If you leave the bacteria there for too long, they turn into a plaque. After a
while, this plaque turns into the hard substance called tartar. Tartar
encourages the growth of rather more dangerous types of bacteria.
These bacteria make toxins, which irritate your gums and cause inflammation.
This is called gingivitis. If you don't treat the gingivitis, you end up with
Periodontal Disease. Here the bacterial toxins invade the gums, the bones and
the structures that support your teeth. Periodontal Disease is quite serious,
and unfortunately, the symptoms often appear late.
And finally, another good reason for flossing and getting rid of these
encrustations of bacteria, is that in some cases, you can also get rid of bad
breath. Sometimes, the bacteria break down the food particles left in your
mouth, and create volatile sulphur compounds.
These sulphur chemicals can give you bad breath. But dental floss can be
dangerous - if you're not careful, it can kill you, and help criminals escape
from jail, and that's what I'll talk about next time...
� Karl S.
Kruszelnicki Pty Ltd 2003.
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