Who Made That Dental Floss?

Jens Mortensen for The New York Times

By PAGAN KENNEDY

In the early 1800s, a pioneering dentist, Levi Spear Parmly, urged patients to clean between their teeth with silk thread — a revolutionary technique that could protect the gum line and prevent tooth decay. But “people just didn’t get it,” says Dr. Scott Swank, curator of the National Museum of Dentistry. In an era during which rotting molars were the norm, he says, “people expected their teeth to fall out.”

Dental Duty

The Victorians also loved their toothpicks. After dinner, a gentleman would produce a leather box, reach into its velvet-lined interior, withdraw his gold pick and begin grooming. Charles Dickens owned a toothpick inlaid with ivory and engraved with his initials; it retracted into its own handle like a tiny spyglass. Flossing might have been more effective, but how could it compete with the flash of the toothpick? Back then, silk thread came in unwieldy spools and had to be cut into lengths with a knife. Worse, using it required you to put your fingers into your mouth.

In the 1870s, Asahel Shurtleff helped to civilize floss when he patented the first dispenser: a bobbin of thread with a U-shaped prong sticking out of its side. The prong worked like a tiny metal hand, guiding floss between the teeth. His invention anticipated the portable floss holders you can now buy in drugstores.

Designers have since given us bubble-gum-flavored floss, Gore-Tex strands and tooth-shaped dispensers — all in an attempt to make flossing seem fun or at least not too difficult. Recent studies, meanwhile, have revealed that flossing might be one of the simplest ways to ward off tooth decay. Yet, Swank says: “People still don’t care. Or they don’t want to put their hands in their mouths.” Two centuries on, flossing remains the quintessential thing that we forget — and hate — to do.

FLOSS ON FILM

Gary Roma is producing a documentary about dental floss.

You’re seriously working on a feature-length movie about floss? After making my documentary about doorstops, I decided to continue mining the mundane for meaning.

You managed to catch on film a monkey, flossing with a piece of string. How? Serendipity. I was filming in a zoo for another project. On cue, a monkey grabbed a rope, pulled out a strand and began flossing.

You interviewed two inmates who tried to escape from a prison using dental floss. What was their method? They used several miles of floss to create two braided rope ladders, enabling them to scale a 40-foot prison wall.

Is it true that you’re planning to raise money for your movie by selling vintage floss containers online? I likely have the largest dental-floss collection in the world — nearly 200 pieces. I plan to auction it off so I can hire an editor to whittle down 100 hours of floss footage.

A version of this article appeared in print on October 21, 2012, on page MM20 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: Who Made That? (Dental Floss).