You say dentist, I say dontist

I recently posted a commentary on the matter of dentist vs. dontist ["Say ahh(ha!)"].

Why, I asked several practicioners of the dental arts, is the general practice person called a dentist while all specialists in the field are called dontists (as in periodontists, orthodontist, etc.)?

Dunno, both said. And, I was unable to get much more information during a diligent online search.

Luckily, I had put the same question to the American Dental Association via e-mail. Here’s the response received today from Andrea Matlak, archivist for the ADA Library.

Dear Mr. Dowd:

This is in reply to your request for information on the origin of the usage of the word “dentist.” … The Archives of the American Dental Association houses the historical records of the ADA and maintains information on the history of dentistry including biographical information on dentists and others involved in the profession. The ADA does not have an expert on nomenclature on staff, so your question was forwarded to me for answer since it has to do with history.

As far as I understand, the word “dentist” was borrowed from the French word dentiste. It first appeared in the English language in the middle of the 18th Century. The coinage is generally traced to an important book in the history of dentistry, “The Chirurgien Dentiste” (surgeon dentist) by Pierre Fauchard, first published in 1728. This book, often credited as the first textbook on dentistry, is the first book to outline a complete scientific system for the care of the teeth. It was quickly disseminated throughout Europe after its first publication although it was not translated into English until many years later.

The word dentiste was not coined by Fauchard and dates to at least the 16th Century in France. It is evidently a French translation of the Latin word dentarius which was first used in a set of 16th Century French laws governing surgeons to describe those who specialized in the teeth and gums. Latin was probably the language used for legal documents at the time (of) its appearance in France. The words for most all of the dental specialties came much later in the 19th (century) to early 20th Century, long after dentistry had been established as a profession.

Evidently there was some attempt to devise a uniform terminology to designate the dental specialties derived from Greek roots and ending with –ics, a common suffix borrowed from the Greek to designate a practice, branch of activity or applied science. These words generally encompass the following concepts:

(1.) The anatomic region involved (-odont)
(2.) The fact that a practice is meant (-ics)
(3.) Usually the character of the treatment employed (orth-, prosth-, etc.), but sometimes either the character of the patient (gero- or pedo-) or designation of the specific anatomical region (peri- or end-).

I am not sure if this answers your question and it is probably an oversimplification of the matter. The source of my information, a couple chapters from an important book on dental nomenclature (i.e.; “The Vocabulary of Dentistry and Oral Science, A Manual for the Study of Dental Nomenclature,” by George Denton , Chicago: American Dental Association, 1958), probably offers a much better explanation of the origins of the words than what I have summarized here.

Dr. Denton was a dental historian and Ph.D scholar who headed an ADA committee charged with developing uniform standards of nomenclature for dental science in the 1950s. This book was the final outcome of the committee’s work. If you are interested I would be happy to e-mail the pertinent chapters to you .

Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of further assistance or if you have any questions.

Andrea Matlak

Would that every organization had someone as professional and responsive to an outsider’s inquiry as Ms. Matlak.

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That’s from

TOM JEFFERSON, RE-BORN AGAIN AMERICAN

OK, so for those of you who think Thomas Jefferson might have been America’s first president of African or Arab descent, it’s probably not true.

Oh, you didn’t think such a thing? What? You never even heard that supposition?

Well, that’s what we’re here for, to help solve puzzles and report on the latest findings that might increase your store of knowledge. No, no need to thank me.

The debate began about a decade ago when DNA samples were taken from male relatives of Jefferson to see if the prez had fathered a son with one of his slaves, probably Sally Hemmings. In the testing it was discovered that Jefferson had a rare genetic signature found mainly in the Middle East and Africa, quite surprising for a man who claimed Welsh ancestry.

Now, according to the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the same DNA type — a rare male (or Y) chromosome type — has been found in two Britons with the Jefferson surname. The journal said genetic analysis showed the British men shared a common ancestor with Jefferson about 11 generations ago. But neither knew of any family links to the US.

“The unusual lineage has not been found in white Britons before. This discovery scotches any suggestion that Jefferson – who was president between 1801 and 1809 – must have had recent paternal ancestors from the Middle East,” said a report by the BBC.

It’s OK. Some of my best friends are Welsh.

OCTOBER IS THE CRUELEST MONTH

Dear Professor Know-It-All:

Today is the first day of October, the 10th month of the year. But, as I learned in Latin class in school, “octo” means eight. What gives?

(Signed) Confusidus Maximus

Dear Max:

You must have missed history class, where they would have told you that October was the eighth month in the old Roman calendar, so the name fit when it first was used. However, great thinkers have a habit of diddling around with such things as calendars, so what starts out as one thing often winds up being something else entirely.

We now use the Gregorian calendar, which wound up placing this transitional month — midway between the true seasons — in 10th place.

To further complicate the process, the Gregorian calendar didn’t start on the first of the year, or the first of a month, for that matter. It was adopted on October 4, 1582, and the next day was called October 15.

That happened because the new calendar was constructed to match up as closely as possible to what is known as the “tropical year,” the time it takes for the Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun. Before that, there was about a 10- or 11-day difference between the actual time of year and the calendar time, so people were always putting away their summer clothes too soon or getting to an important cocktail party too late.

So, Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the day after October 4 would be October 15. So much for home schooling. And, Catholicism being the leading political party in such places as France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, October 15 it was — for them.

Within the next couple of years, a few other nearby countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland adopted the Gregorian calendar because, well, it appeared to work pretty well and besides they were pretty much all Catholics, too.

Not so in the rest of Europe, where it took another century to put in place. The Protestant German countries adopted it in 1700, England and its American colonies in 1752.

The latter happened just in time for a calendrical course correction that made September 2, 1752, immediately followed by September 14. Rioting ensued but nowadays people don’t feel all that strongly about the calendar as long as they get enough three-day holiday weekends by having such things as presidential birthdays shifted around willy-nilly.

Don’t get me started on November.

THE INFAMOUS MR. (& MRS.) ARNOLD

This week marked the 226th anniversary of Benedict Arnold’s betrayal of the American forces during the Revolutionary War. (Sept. 23, for those who are slaves to the calendar.)

Since from my hilltop abode I have a clear view across the Hudson River of Saratoga County, NY, the place of Arnold’s greatest military work before he turned traitor and switched to the British side, I’m regularly reminded of his odd place in American history.

But, what of Mrs. Arnold, or one of them, anyway? (Benny was married three times.)

Margaret “Peggy” Shippen was his longest-tenured wife. To do that, she had to put up with a vain, annoying, fiscally failing, morally equivocating anomaly of a man.

I’ve been interested in her since childhood for the simple reason my first hometown was the university town of Shippensburg, Pa., which Peggy’s father, the English-born Edward Shippen, founded in 1737. It was at the time the westernmost colonial settlement in the U.S. A stone house Shippen had built on the main street today houses the local historical society.

The Shippens were a wealthy and influential family in Colonial America, with homes in a variety of places, including Philadelphia where they spent most of their time. In fact, that’s where Benedict and Peggy met.

It’s probable that when Arnold got into a huff over not getting a much-deserved promotion by the Continental Army and decided to hand over the plans to West Point to the Brits, Peggy didn’t do much to talk him out of switching allegiances. After all, she came from a strictly pro-British upbringing and all indications are that she’d prefer we didn’t break away. (Her father, who avoided formally declaring to be either Patriot or Loyalist during the Revolution, eventually became Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.)

They say behind every great man is a great woman. The same must go for stinkers, too.

LET SLIP THE DOGS OF AUGUST

So we have arrived at August 1, a much-anticipated yet often-maligned date on the calendar.

It marks the start of the major vacation period in America, yet it also marks the start of the “dog days” when humidity and temperatures vie for the highest numbers they can reach on the discomfort scale.

It marks the time when late-summer treats such as strawberries and melons begin appearing in our gardens in profusion, but it also marks the time of highest heat stress on our expensive lawns.

It tells us there still are 33 promising days left until that old killjoy, Labor Day, is upon us, but it also ushers in a time when merchants and the unimaginative among us begin to drone on about how close we are to the start of a new school year.

Historically, it’s a mixed bag sort of a day, as most are.

William Clark of Lewis and Clark, Francis Scott Key, Herman Melville, Yves St. Laurent, Jerry Garcia and Adam Duritz all were born on this day. In 1774, Joseph Priestly discovered oxygen. In 1790, the first U.S. population census said we were a nation of 3.9 million. In 1876, Colorado became the 38th state. In 1876, blacks went to the polls for the first time in the U.S., voting in Tennessee. In 1973, the iconic film “American Graffiti” debuted.

On the down side, in 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait and the U.S. jumped into a situation that has gotten progressively worse. In 1945, the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In 1972, George W. Bush was suspended from flying with the Air National Guard.

In the you-rate-it category, on this day in 1863 Robert Todd Lincoln, a son of Abraham Lincoln, was rescued from a train accident by Edwin Booth, brother of the man who two years later assassinated Robert’s father; George Samuelson and Frank Harbo completed a two month, 3,000-mile journey from New York to England — in a rowboat; New York State issued its first auto license plates in 1910, and MTV debuted in 1981 by playing “Video Killed the Radio Star,” by the Buggles.

In the end, like any other day, today is what you make of it.

ET TU, YOU BRUTE?

The late Ramon Novarro brought the Roman gladiator back to life when he played the title character in the silent film era’s original “Ben Hur” in 1926. Kirk Douglas did it during his motion picture prime with 1960’s “Spartacus.” Russell Crowe, who was born four years after Douglas’s film, did it most recently in 1998’s “Gladiator” (seen here).

Now, scientists are taking their turn, thanks to the discovery of a site at the ancient city of Ephesus in Turkey, believed to be a gladiator graveyard. The graves hold thousands of bones and three gravestones clearly depicting ancient Roman arena fighters. Two professors from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, have spent the past five years analyzing every bone for age, injury and cause of death.

They estimate they have found and studied at least 67 individuals, mostly aged 20 to 30, and many with healed wounds. What that means to the researchers is that the gladiators got good medical care and probably were involved in fights organized under strict rules. Otherwise, they say, mass brawls as sometimes depicted in films would have resulted in multiple wouinds on bones and other evidence of gross trauma.

Their report, just recently made available to the BBC, also includes detailed information on the types of weapons, the types of fights, and the final dispositions of some of the gladiators.

Fascinating stuff, that what we’ve been seeing all these years in the movies may well be close to the truth. Many people feel that gladiatorial battles were the height of barbaric behavior for a supposedly advanced civilization such as Rome. My take on it is that they didn’t have cable TV, so what can you expect?

I wonder what anthropologists in A.D. 4007 will deduced from their study of artifacts from our times — images from “ultimate” fighting bouts and WWF wrestling that dot cable TV, the remnants of “survivor” shows on remote islands around the globe, footage from teen slasher flicks, and preserved outtakes from the Jerry Springer drekfest.

Now, that’s barbaric.

TOM JEFFERSON, WELSH AGAIN

OK, so for those of you who think Thomas Jefferson might have been America’s first president of African or Arab descent, it’s probably not true.

Oh, you didn’t think such a thing? What? You never even heard that supposition?

Well, that’s what we’re here for, to help solve puzzles and report on the latest findings that might increase your store of knowledge. No, no need to thank me.

The debate began about a decade ago when DNA samples were taken from male relatives of Jefferson to see if the prez had fathered a son with one of his slaves, probably Sally Hemmings. In the testing it was discovered that Jefferson had a rare genetic signature found mainly in the Middle East and Africa, quite surprising for a man who claimed Welsh ancestry.

Now, according to the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the same DNA type — a rare male (or Y) chromosome type — has been found in two Britons with the Jefferson surname. The journal said genetic analysis showed the British men shared a common ancestor with Jefferson about 11 generations ago. But neither knew of any family links to the US.

“The unusual lineage has not been found in white Britons before. This discovery scotches any suggestion that Jefferson – who was president between 1801 and 1809 – must have had recent paternal ancestors from the Middle East,” said a report by the BBC.

Light a birthday candle for the ignorant

Today is George Washington’s birthday.

According to the Gregorian calendar we use these days, that is. Otherwise, he was born on Feb. 11, according to the Julian calendar that preceded it.

In either instance, it is not the same birthday as Abraham Lincoln’s (that was Feb. 12) or any other president’s despite what the government entities that have turned “Presidents Day” into a long weekend paid at your expense and what commerce has decreed with its idiotic sales gimmicks that use the images of Washington, Lincoln and others like some kind of carnival sideshow hawkers.

There is so little respect these days for our American antecedents that I know I’m fighting a losing battle in trying to point out the ignorance, the insult and the idiocy of turning the birth celebrations of arguably our two most distinguished presidents into a freebie day off at the expense of other citizens who don’t happen to work for the government and/or an opportunity to turn a fast buck in the world of commercialism.

But, I shall persevere. Don’t even get me started about what has happened to Memorial Day, also changed to give government workers an extra three-day weekend.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

Thirty days has September, April, June and November.

So, what’s so special about January that it needs one more when its neighbor, February, got short shrift?

Well, a lot of interesting things happened on this day the Gregorian calendar calls January 31. For one, my kid brother was born. Whether that has any lasting impact on the world remains to be seen. He’s a nice guy, but he hasn’t cured any diseases or designed any skyscrapers yet.

For those of us in any form of the journalism trade, it is the feast day of St. John Bosco, patron saint of Christian apprentices, editors, and publishers. Doesn’t matter if you’re not Catholic. Any day devoted to you or your patron saint can’t be all bad.

On this date in 1606, upstart Guy Fawkes was executed for plotting against Parliament and James I of England. In 1865, Robert E. Lee was named head of the Confederate military. In 1876, the federal government ordered all Indians to move to reservations. In 1930, 3M introduced Scotch Tape to the world. Sam Goldwyn of MGM fame died in 1974.

And so on and on and on.

History mystery comes unHenged

One of the enduring mysteries involves Stonehenge, the circle of huge stones on England’s Salisbury Plain.

Who built them? How did they do it? And, perhaps as important, why?

A team of archaeologists has just announced the discovery of an ancient settlement they think was used by the people who built Stonehenge. The finding of a Neolithic village that would have housed several hundred people was at a place called Durrington Walls. The dwellings date to 2,600-2,500 BC.

Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University told the BBC the researchers have excavated eight houses that belonged to the Durrington settlement. They have identified up to 100 other probable dwellings, using geophysical surveying equipment.

Parker Pearson said he believes Durrington’s purpose was to celebrate life and deposit the dead in the river for transport to the afterlife, while Stonehenge was a memorial and even final resting place for some of the dead.

Whether this solves much of the Stonehenge mystery or not, it does sweep away some of the clouds surrounding the edifice.

WHAT ARE YOU SMILING AT?

Discussions about enigmatic facial expressions used to be limited mostly to the Mona Lisa and her famous smile. Now we are discussing whether Thomas Jefferson is smiling on the newest piece of U.S. currency (seen here).

It’s the new Jefferson nickel. The U.S. Mint plans to begin shipping 80 million of them to the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks. Artistically, the new design breaks the style precedent set in 1909 when Abraham Lincoln became the first president depicted on a circulating coin; his profile and that of all other presidents shown on coins have all been in profile.

The new Jefferson pose, taken from an 1800 portrait, shows the nation’s third president looking forward. Some observers say there is a hint of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. I say they have been playing with the catnip.

Ol’ Tom was many things — scholar, patriot, statesman, inventor, musician, architect, ladies’ man — but he wasn’t known for going around with a grin on his face and I doubt the artist Rembrandt Peale, who executed many a painting of an unsmiling Tom, would have fooled around with the image of such an important client.

THE CATS & THE HISTORIANS

I have often commented, not ad nausem I hope, on the doings of The Other Beings cohabitating with me up here on Weathering Heights.

They are The Large Cat and The Larger Cat, denizens of our cozy living space and bringers of entertainment and contentment which they trade for tasty tidbits, strings to chase and frequent grooming sessions.

We have always suspected they come from a lineage even longer than we knew to be the case — domesticated cats being traced back to at least the pharonic dynasties of ancient Egypt. We’ve even viewed a cat mummy ensconced in the Albany (N.Y.) Institute of History and Art.

Now comes word that modern cats have their roots in Asia 11 million years ago, according to a DNA study of wild and domestic cats reported on by the BBC.

The ancient ancestors of the 37 species alive today, say the scientists in the report, migrated across the globe, eventually settling in all continents except Antarctica. They merged into eight major lineages such as lions, ocelots and domestic cats.

How did they get up here on Weathering Heights, I wondered? Other than the obvious, of course, that being when we adopted them from a cat shelter.

Well, say the scientists, the common ancestors of modern cats crossed the Bering land bridge to North America about eight million years ago.

I doubt those cats would be impressed by the ones we know that can barely be troubled to move from puddle of sunshine to puddle of sunshine on a sunny afternoon.

THOSE WHO IGNORE HISTORY

Illegal aliens sneaking across the Rio Grande into the U.S. usually say they’re trying to get away from a land of no opportunity.

Apparently, Mexico wasn’t always that way.

Scientists have found what they say may well be the oldest example of New World writing ever found. And, it comes from an ancient civilization in what today is Mexico.

A 2,000-year-old example of a previously unknown form of writing was found on a stone slab in the State of Veracruz, according to a new report in Science magazine.

Scientists say they believe the inscriptions were made by the Olmecs, an ancient pre-Columbian people known for creating large statues of heads. If so, that means they were writing 400 years before their contemporaries in the Western hemisphere.

So, a non-PC thought occurred to me: If Mexico had a civilization that developed writing as far back as the birth of Christ, where did it all go so very wrong? They had a 20-century headstart on the U.S. and blew it.

There must be a moral in there somewhere. Perhaps something to mull over while waiting in line to apply for legal immigration.

THIS JUST IN: PLAGUE AFFECTS CLIMATE

“Global warming” notwithstanding, this winter’s killer storms and sub-zero temperatures have wreaked havoc across Europe. Perhaps a few centuries from now, scientists will figure out why.

Why a few centuries? It took them that long to figure out that the “Black Death” — bubonic plague — that wiped out about a third of Europe’s population in the 14th Century may also have triggered what is known as the Little Ice Age, a 300-year period of markedly decreased temperatures.

Say what? Well, using what some may now label Chaos Theory, think about how small things can cause other things. The popular example is the movement of a butterfly’s wings eventually causing a storm a continent away.

With so many people dying, untended and abandoned farmland wound up going back to nature, with trees and bushes taking over formerly tended fields. Pollen and leaf data, researchers say, support the idea that millions of trees sprang up, soaking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere which, in turn, had the effect of cooling the climate.

A team from Utrecht University in the Netherlands notes that such a happenstance coincides with the drop in average temperatures across Europe at that time. Of course, not everyone believes in this latest theory. Tim Lenton, an environmental scientist from the University of East Anglia in England, told the BBC, “It is a nice study and the carbon dioxide changes could certainly be a contributory factor, but I think they are too modest to explain all the climate change seen.”

And Richard Houghton, a climate expert from the Woods Hole Research Center on Cape Cod, says that the oceans would have compensated for the change. “The atmosphere is in equilibrium with the ocean and this tends to dampen or offset small changes in terrestrial carbon uptake,” he explained.

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

The accuracy of the familiar phrase “there is nothing new under the sun” is open to debate. Assuming for the sake of argument that it were true, however, there is enough old under the sun to keep us busy.

Announcement of the discovery of a new pharonic tomb in Egypt’s sun-baked Valley of the Kings is just the latest find we’ve heard about this week. (See earlier posts on the grave of Genghis Khan and the discovery of new flora and fauna in Indonesia.)

Archaeologists have discovered an intact, ancient Egyptian tomb about three miles from the site of King Tutankhamun’s, the last such discovery (1922). A team led by the University of Memphis found the “new” tomb which contains five undisturbed mummies and unopened sarcophagi.

That makes 63 tombs discovered since the valley was first mapped in the 18th century, and it seems to have been by chance.

Patricia Podzorski, curator of Egyptian Art at the University of Memphis, whose team led the expedition, said in an interview with BBC’s “World Tonight” news program, “The excavation team was focused on the tomb of a 19th Dynasty pharaoh, King Amenmesses. They were working in front of the tomb looking for foundation deposits possibly related to that tomb, and clearing away some workmen’s huts from the 19th Dynasty that were both to the left and right side of the tomb. Underneath these workmen’s huts, they found a shaft.”

That shaft led to the find, thought to date from the 18th Pharaonic Dynasty, the first dynasty of the New Kingdom which ruled between 1539 B.C. and 1292 B.C. and made its capital in Thebes, the present city of Luxor.

Why do we go on about this? Because new knowledge is what life is all about. It’s the sort of thing that makes you eager to begin each new day.

ANCIENT PUZZLES, MODERN PASSIONS

Who was buried in Grant’s Tomb?

Well, we know it wasn’t Genghis Khan. But, where was the legendary Mongol warlord and creator of a vast ancient empire buried?

That’s a question that has been an archaeological puzzle of the first order since Khan died in 1227 and was buried at a secret location by his ferocious horseback warriors.

Now, out on the flat plains of eastern Mongolia, an oval area enclosed by a two-mile wall has yielded clues to the site of the grave. As The Washington Post’s foreign service reports:

“For eight centuries it has been (a secret), despite a number of more or less scientific expeditions, claims and counterclaims, some of them evocative of an Indiana Jones movie. But a U.S.-Mongolian expedition organized by Maury Kravitz, a retired Chicago commodities trader, made what may have been a breakthrough two summers ago. His explorers unearthed several graves dating from the 13th century inside the wall, a shambles of stone 200 miles east of Ulan Bator, the Mongolian capital. Shagdaryn Bira, secretary general of the International Association for Mongol Studies and a recognized authority, said the graves are a promising sign that the wall could surround the bodies of Genghis Khan and his closest kin.”

” … Kravitz, who shares the dream to the point of obsession, said he was unable to continue searching last summer because of a shortage of funds and an associate’s health problems. But he is raising money for an expedition this summer to comb the now-frozen site anew in hopes of confirming it as a family burial ground — and eventually of pinpointing the grave of the conqueror himself.”

This sort of single-minded curiosity is how great discoveries are made. The people making them may sometimes seem eccentric, strange or just a bit odd, but they’re the adventurers who bring knowledge to light. We can hardly wait to hear more of Kravitz & Company’s fascinating adventures.