The Secrets of a Naked Piece of Wood
Civilization isn't only a matter of art and statecraft and the building of cities; sometimes it rests on nothing more substantial than a splinter. The discovery of the toothpick may not rank with the invention of the wheel. Still, it could be argued that this humble implement not only alleviated discomfort and promoted good hygiene, but made conversation possible at close quarters. Of course, public use of the toothpick has always been controversial. When the Roman writer Petronius wanted to show the vulgarity of Trimalchio in his "Satyricon," he has him "going over his teeth with a silver toothpick" at an obscenely lavish banquet.
Toothpick etiquette is still a matter of dispute. Americans, who used to whittle their own, soon became addicted to mass-produced toothpicks. Around 1908, an "American Anti-Toothpick Society" was founded to combat "the pervasive toothpick" on fancy dinner tables. And as recently as the 1990s, the sumptuously named Professor Pompilius McGrath could lecture to a packed crowd at Madison Square Garden on the "no-nos of human behaviour," which included cleaning one's teeth in polite company.
In Henry Petrovski's delightful "The Toothpick: Technology and Culture" (Knopf, 464 pages, $27.95), the saga of this elegant but oddly disreputable implement is told in full. And it is a saga. Mr. Petroski writes, "The history of the toothpick is as old as mankind and as universal as eating." As he has demonstrated in earlier books, such as "The Pencil," Mr. Petroski is skilled at extracting large facts from little objects. To this end he draws on literature from Ovid and Pliny, Rabelais and Cervantes, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, down to Letitia Baldridge. He consults old newspapers, patents and archival documents. His wonderful illustrations range from exquisite hand-carved Portuguese toothpicks to diagrams of goose quills, with several fascinating plans of early equipment for the mass production of toothpicks, some as loony as they are ingenious.
Mr. Petrovski begins his tale with the grooves on the fossilized teeth of our earliest ancestors. Prehistoric humans were as annoyed by bits of gristle stuck between their teeth as we are. From these tiny tooth-marks we know that they used stalks of grass containing "large numbers of hard, abrasive silica particles" to dislodge them. But it took eons to progress from grassblade floss to Trimalchio's silver toothpick. Mr. Petrovski summarizes the problems of design by noting that a good toothpick "should have sufficient stiffness to provide the appropriate leverage but not be so stiff as to be unyielding in the mouth. It should be free of unpleasant tastes and odors, and it should possess an even color." These conditions were met in the seventh century when the Prophet Muhammad encouraged use of the siwâk, a twig of arak wood fashioned into a brush; a fresh one was even brought to him on his deathbed and many Muslims still regard its use as a matter both of cleanliness and of piety.
Today, wood remains the toothpick material of choice. In his discussion of the composition and design of this seemingly simplest of utensils, from the chosen wood to the intricacies of production, Mr. Petrovski combines historical narrative with technical expertise to compelling effect. His account of the career of Charles Forster (1826–1901), who amassed a fortune from toothpick manufacture through shrewd business sense and sheer doggedness of vision, is a grand story built on the spindliest of foundations. Allying himself with the eccentric cobbler-inventor Benjamin Ranklin Turtevant, who devised machinery capable of turning out properly cut and bevelled toothpicks (though intended originally for making wooden "shoe plugs"), Forster managed not only to create a craze for store-bought toothpicks but to market them successfully. This is a tale of high energy and low cunning, and Mr. Petrovski tells it beautifully. Forster chose white birch wood and moved from Massachusetts to Maine where the tree was plentiful; there he prospered, establishing such mill towns as Strong and Dixfield, itself once dubbed "a town built out of toothpicks."
Mr. Petrovski is a professor of civil engineering at Duke University and, as do all good teachers, he likes to digress. He intersperses the story of Forster and his ill-fated heirs with piquant facts, skewered like passing canapés on his beloved toothpicks. He reminds us that Arkansas is "the Toothpick State" and that a Bowie knife was known as an "Arkansas toothpick." He explores the use of toothpicks in metaphor and popular speech. He gives a little history of the "locofoco" or "self-igniting cigar" and notes that Sherwood Anderson died from peritonitis after downing the toothpick in his martini.
Mr. Petrovski is especially good on what might be termed the metaphysics of the toothpick. To the frustration of Forster's rivals, it was almost impossible to discover how he manufactured his products. (The process was shrouded in secrecy for decades and the mills off-limits to visitors.) A toothpick, after all, is supremely simple; it has no parts. From an engine one can infer the elements of design and so reconstruct it. But as Mr. Petrovski notes, a toothpick has no inside. Whether rounded or flat, pointed at one end or at both, chamfered or bevelled, it is always what it is, "a naked piece of wood" which is, at the same time, the homeliest splinter of our history.
eormsby@nysun.com
