Kara Vavrosky, RDH

Throwback Thursday is taking it back to 1965 when the official emblem of dentistry was adopted by the American Dental Association. The origin of the symbol dates back to ancient times however – from the snake wrapped around a physician’s staff to the circle and triangle which are Greek letters.

Let’s start with the meaning of the snake. The Greek god Asclepius is represented by a snake because it was believed that he turned into a snake and slithered around the land to heal people who suffered from the Roman plague. Because of this, Greeks would use non-venomous snakes in their healing rituals. They would even let the snakes slither around the floor of where injured or sick people slept. Further, the shedding of the snakes skin symbolized healing, rejuvenation, and rebirth in Greek times. The Greek god Asclepius also had children; Hygieia, whose name the word “hygiene” is derived, and Panaceia, from where the word “panacea” came, meaning a “cure-all or universal remedy.”

The circle and triangle in the emblem are Greek letters that are intersecting each other. The O (omicron) represents “odont” meaning tooth in Greek. The triangle (delta) represents the letter D for dentistry.

The leaves and berries represent the amount of teeth in the primary and permanent dentition. There are 32 leaves for the permanent dentition and 20 berries representing the primary.

Finally, the lilac color is the official color of dentistry. It was chosen as such in 1897 by the National Association of Dental Faculties.

Throwback Thursday is taking it back to almost 1.8 million years ago when repeated use of toothpicks in early humans caused periodontal disease, researchers have found. This discovery came from the study of hominid mandibles from the Dmanisi Republic of Georgia. The findings also help explain the diversity found in early Pleistocene hominid mandibles and teeth, according to Swiss paleoanthropologists and researchers from Finland and the Republic of Georgia. While this set of mandibles had been studied to discern how old and what these individuals ate, this was the first time that researchers were able to explain the wear, shape, and malformations that just couldn’t be chalked up to genetics alone. As reported by one researcher, “’Progressive tooth wear triggers bone remodelling processes that substantially modify the shape of the jaw during an individual’s lifetime.”

These bones belong to the earliest proto-humans known to exist outside of Africa. Dmanisi hominids walked upright, used tools, and had slightly smaller brains than modern humans. They were initially thought to be a separate species of Homo but are now referred to as Homo erectus georgicus. The remains were originally discovered by David Lordkipanidze in 1991.