Tooth and Veil: The life and times of the New Zealand dental nurse [Paperback]

In 1921, when the School Dental Service was established, New Zealand embarked on a unique social experiment: improving the terrible state of the nations teeth. Set up by veterans of the First World War, the service  focused on battling Bertie Germ  was run like a military operation and the all-female dental nurses were treated like foot-soldiers: underpaid, overworked and poorly resourced. Eventually they rebelled. In this lively history, Noel OHare details the nurses experiences on the front line of dental health, and explores what that reveals about our societys attitudes to women, work and childrens health.

The story of the young women charged with waging war on our nations poor teeth

That a dental history should rely so heavily on?oral?history is just one of the delights of?Tooth and Veil. The other is that those much-maligned heroines of dental health have at last had a chance to tell their side of the story.?

Noel OHare is a freelance journalist, columnist, blogger and author. Born in Northern Ireland, Noel has lived and worked in New Zealand since the early 1970s. In the 1980s he became a staff writer for theNew Zealand Listener, where he wrote many award-winning features on subjects as diverse as reading, tantric sex, diet, mental illness and alternative therapies. He was awarded a 20032004 Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism to write articles on mental health, in particular about the effects of migration on mental health. He is the author ofThink before you Swallow: The art of staying healthy in a health-obsessed world(2007) andHow to Save the World by Recycling Your Sex Toys(2009). Until recently, he worked as a researcher and writer for the Public Service Association.