Modern Dentistry.

Modern science has played a fairly large role in my life. When I was in the 7th grade I knocked out one of my front teeth after crashing on a motorized scooter. The entire thing came out, and didn't crack at all, so we were able to rush to the dentist and get it reinserted. During the next month and a half, I had to have my tooth glued to the ones surrounding it while I waited for it to take root again. Needless to say, the tooth died, and required a root canal in order to remove the dead tissue. An additional root canal was needed every 3 months for a year to fill and replace a calcium supplement meant to strengthen the tooth until finally a permanent hardening material was used. I still have the tooth to this day.

If not for modern dentistry, I would likely never have been able to recover and reattach my tooth. I'd look like a hockey player, or a pirate or something. Gross.

But in all seriousness, missing one of my front teeth would probably influence many people to have a much different impression of me. There's a social stigma that causes people with missing teeth to be viewed as poor, dirty, even unintelligent. However, this ideology is largely associated with the premise that only those without the means or desire to repair such damage would tolerate it. And if someone did something that resulted in their losing a tooth, it certainly wouldn't be unjustified to question their intelligence. Both of these concerns are fairly moot because if we were without access to modern dentistry, missing and/or crooked teeth would be much more common, and these cultural associations would be without precedent.