I was replying to something over on marycrawford's LJ, and I had to delete most of it when I realized I was segueing off into essay-land and it was more appropriate to put here. The subject she brought up, time travel in romance novels, is something I've been meaning to do an essay on for a while now. I keep adding to it mentally each time I shelve yet another, "Big Busty and Blond" time travels back to Medieval/Regency/Georgian times and loses her mind and independence falls madly in love with "Tall, Dark and Titled." Let's stop and think about that one for a minute, ladies. (And, okay, men too. Because I'm all for equality and there's been a rise lately in the romances depicting men traveling back in time.* However, for the purposes of making this essay less confusing, I'm going to stick to referencing women.)

You're a modern woman and, I assume, you love your modern conveniences. Toilets, cable TV, Internet and mass-produced chocolate. However, if we have to, we can make do without them. Anyone been camping recently? And I do mean real camping, not taking the RV out for a spin. Actual getting out in the woods/country and sleeping in a tent/cabin with no electricity, an outhouse and hot water only after you heat it yourself. That's doable and really, for the right guy, sure, why not? At least, that seems to be as far as many women's thinking goes when they pick up these books.

"Oh, I am so there! I can live without all of that so long as Baron Longwick is there at my side!"

...okay! Now, let's take a good look at what most women never give a thought to.

How was your last trip to the dentist? Was it good? Had some x-rays updated, had your teeth cleaned with some power tools, rinsed with some fluoride? Maybe it wasn't so good (like mine, and, incidentally, what made me begin thinking about this) and you had to sit there, white-knuckled in the chair as the nice Eastern-European lady with only her eyes showing behind the mask held up a syringe full of Novocain and said, "Now I vant you to relax and open ze mouth vide, da?" And then the drilling commenced, but you were numb for it and didn't feel much. All in all, not too bad, eh?

Well, you've settled in with your rich, titled studmuffin in some past time -- let's call it the 1820s, because that's when most of these romances tend to be set; you've enjoyed some good months, probably popped out a few rugrats because birth control, well, we'll get to that one down the road in another essay. You've probably been brushing, flossing (silk floss was invented in the 1815(1) and was probably available to you in quantity if you were rolling in the $$$) and rinsing with a variety of oral rinses available. However, none of these are going to contain fluoride, because the particular effect on dental health of that ionic form of fluorine wasn't discovered until around 1900(2). Say what you will about fluoride and its presence in our water (it's poison, it causes cancer, it's a communist plot, it'll bring back a zombified Elvis, whatever) a modern person's teeth are healthier for it, and you're going to notice its absence. Like the morning you wake up in the 1820s, cuddled up in your love nest with Lord Strapping of Hungwell, and you have a toothache. Well, gosh darn it; I guess it's time for a trip to the local dentist. If there is one. Back then, sometimes you just had to make do with the local barber who yanked teeth when he wasn't trimming hair.

So, do you have a cavity or not? Does it need a root canal? X-rays sure aren't going to tell you, because those weren't used in a dental capacity until the 1900s. And you probably wouldn't have wanted them in the early days regardless, unless you really wanted to play the ever fun game of, "Look! I can glow in the dark!" At least until you died from radiation poisoning.

But, that's not your concern, because x-rays are a thing of the future and Dr. Toothlove is currently prodding at your sore tooth without benefit of anesthesia. And what d'you know, he thinks it either needs to be drilled or pulled.

Hey, you're in luck! After a good millennium of being rather clueless, the profession of dentistry has rediscovered the drill!(3) Of course, it's a hand held, man powered drill and if they decide you need a root canal, using that drill is going to take a half hour or more. You up for that? Because if you're looking for Ether or Nitrous Oxide, neither was put into use in medicine until the 1840s.(4)(5) So, you're left with laudanum and...um...laudanum! That's a derivative of opium, in case you don't already know, and you'd best hope you don't have an addictive personality, otherwise you're USC.

Is laudanum enough to get you through a drilling session of that length? It all depends really. Different batches were different strengths and most of them were cut liberally with ethyl alcohol, so if the laudanum was weak (and up until the mass exports from Turkey starting in the 1830s, they likely were)(6), you had a better chance of getting drunk first. You probably wouldn't feel as much pain on that concoction as you would sober, but it's all relative. It's one thing to cut yourself or break something when you're stoned, it's another to sit there, probably strapped into the chair while a guy sloooowly drills his way into your tooth. You're going to do some screaming there, no matter which way you look at it. In fact, most people of the time chose to have the tooth extracted rather than sit through the drilling.(3) And if you think laudanum is going to touch that kind of pain.... Well, hey, at least it's over faster than the drilling and once the bleeding stops, you should be fine. Assuming infection doesn't set in or your jaw isn't cracked during the extraction. But that's another essay.

Okay, so you've had your trip to the office of dental delights, you're currently laid up at home, a compress on your swollen jaw while Earl Abshard of Rippedington holds your hand, coos sweet nothings at you and promises you hours of exhausting, acrobatic bedroom fun when you're better. It was all worth it, right?

Hey, sure it was! And you get to look forward to it for the rest of your life, however long that may be given the stellar medical knowledge of the 1800s. I know I'm all over that! How 'bout you?

Let's also look at this from another side. It may seem a bit shallow or even petty, but I'm willing to bet that if they stopped to think about it, it would be a valid concern for most women in our modern anti-bacterial age.

So you've met Count Hardbod, fallen for his stunning wit, been intrigued by his mysterious background, wanted to bounce a quarter or two off that incredible ass. But would you want to kiss that mouth?

This is a man who's been raised with the dental standards of the early 1800s, and possibly the late 1700s, depending on his age. Assuming his family was always rolling in the dough, he might well have had access to the best dental care on offer. But if money was ever tight for whatever reason, he might've had to do without.

Short of an intervention from on high, this guy is not going to have a perfect set of pearly whites. He will likely be missing more than a couple teeth. Many more. Now, it's possible that those teeth have been replaced with something, be it shaped bone, ivory or if he was really rich and lucky (and the donor was equally unlucky), a tooth from a live donor. But, again, that all depends on the funds he and/or his family has available to them. If they're getting by on their titles and little else, then this guy is probably hiding a few empty sockets in the back. (Because regardless of the cost, if someone has a title, they'd probably find a way to replace a missing front tooth.)(7)

Your guy may actually have white teeth, if you meet him early enough in his life. It was a common practice among people who wanted to show they had money to have their teeth whitened. He could just go to his local Barber/dentist and have nitric acid put on his teeth.(8) And it really worked. If you meet Lord Shinytooth when he's in his 20s, possibly early 30s, he might very well have a pretty, white smile. But it's not going to last. Nitric acid does make teeth nice and white, but it also eats away at the enamel and down the road, more likely sooner rather than later, you're going to have some serious decay going on in all of his teeth, regardless of how much he brushes and flosses. So, eventually he's going to be left with a mouthful of brown and black rotting teeth.

At this point, unless Viscount Snaggletooth opts to get everything pulled and has himself fitted with a nice set of ivory dentures, kissing him probably isn't going to be a very pleasant experience. Nothing can suck the hotness right out of a kiss like the taste of decay, rot, or possibly pus (if your guy hasn't had the time or money, or is too stubborn to go see the dentist).

For someone who's lived with this kind of thing all their lives, it might not be such a bad thing. After all, everyone else around them has teeth in the same, or worse condition. But for you, a woman coming from a time where having a mouthful of rotting teeth is the exception rather than the rule, it's probably going to be something of a shock. Maybe Lord Tightbuns has a body that makes Schwarzenegger look like a couch potato and a face that Adonis could only wish for, but his mouth is what you'd expect from a corpse straight out of Night of the Living Dead.


This, among others, is one of the reasons I can't read time travel romances anymore. I know I'm supposed to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy the scenario as presented, but there comes a point when the disbelief refuses to be suspended. In fact, it sits there and laughs at you no matter how hard you try to beat it into submission. I reached that point last year and ever since, I've been thinking about writing this out.

Depending on how I feel about it or what inspiration presents itself, I'd like to do a couple more essays on this dealing with health care and food preparation. But not right now. I don't think my stomach would appreciate too much more thought about this.


Notes: I am not a doctor of dentistry or history, nor do I play one on TV. My medical and historical knowledge is gleaned from multiple websites (the referenced ones documented below), history shows I've seen over the years, and things I remembered from books and/or college classes. I welcome any correction of errors or omissions you find.


*Check out Virginia Farmer's A Blast to the Past. It brings the funny in a way that's purposeful, not in that "the author pulled this 'research' out of her ass," sort.


1) History of Dentistry and Dental Care.

2) The Story of Fluoridation.

3)AmericanHeritage.com / Behind the Dentist's Drill

4)The Unusual History of Ether

5)History House: What A Gas: Part II

6) A Brief History of Opium

7) History of Tooth Replacement and Dental Implants and Current Status of Dental Implants by E. Drew Moore, MAJ, DC, USA, DDS, Baylor College of Dentistry, Dallas, Texas, 1989, MS in Periodontics, Oklahoma University College of Dentistry, Department of Graduate Periodontics, 2002

8) A Brief History of Tooth Whitening

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