Thanks to the BSP

Welcome to the special ‘Perio’ issue of Dental Update, put together by the British Society of Periodontology (BSP). Special thanks are due to Drs Praveen Sharma, Phil Ower and BSP President Mark Ide, plus all the authors who have contributed to a superb issue. Periodontology has changed much in the last decade: then it was considered that ‘the foundation for periodontal treatment is the mechanical removal of biofilm’.¹ Now, periodontology has become more than cleaning teeth, with its association with diabetes and other medical factors, plus the increasing ramifications surrounding peri-implantitis. The issue could be subtitled ‘all you need to know about periodontology’. I am certain that readers will find it to be relevant. Enjoy all of it!

Artist: Anna Dumitriu

Medium: Altered antique bone fan, silk impregnated with Provotella intermedia and Porphyromonas gingivalis, and gold-plated wire.

In earlier times fans were popular accessories for everyone, but aside from keeping people cool their other purpose was in fact to hide the rotten teeth and foul breath of their owners. In his 1845 essay on Artificial Teeth WH Mortimer described false teeth as ‘the most profound mystery’ because they were something of which no-one ever spoke. False teeth wearers then did not laugh or show their teeth because the prostheses were made of bone and gold wire and had a tendency to fly out unexpectedly. This is an altered antique fan made from animal bone (as the false teeth of the period would have been) and mended with gold wire (as the false teeth would have been attached). The silk of the fan and ribbon has been grown and patterned with two species of oral pathogens Prevotella intermedia and Porphyromonas gingivalis (the cloth having been embedded in the bacteria on agar plates and in liquid media and then sterilized).