THE SCENE could be mistaken for a piece of modern art. In the foreground
stands a forest of slightly limp tubular balloons. Beyond it, a buffalo herd of
tightly packed spheres fades into a distant horizon. On the skyline are
elaborately shaped edifices: corn-on-the-cobs, bottle brushes, rosettes and
palisades.
But this isn’t fantasy land. The images are of something real鈥攎undane
even鈥攁nd close to all of us. These are the microbes that live in a human
mouth, as seen through an electron microscope. And much-maligned microbes they
are. For decades, dental researchers have been waging all-out war on these tiny
interlopers. The makers of toothpaste and mouthwash have treated them as if they
were an army of comic-book villains. The Evil Plaquemen, as one television
commercial puts it.
Great white sharks
In your mouth, there is a jungle made up of hundreds of species of fungi,
protozoans, viruses, intracellular parasites and鈥攁bove all鈥攂acteria.
Most are permanent residents, and many of them are found nowhere else, not even
in the mouths of other mammals. “What we are seeing is a very elaborate
ecosystem,” says George Bowden a microbiologist at the University of
Manitoba.
Perhaps this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Kept at a balmy 36
掳C, with constant moisture and a steady influx of nutrients, the mouth is a
year-round tropical paradise. Add to this a busy procession of incoming
flights鈥攆ingers, food, pencils, you name it鈥攅ach loaded with
microbial passengers, and we’re talking Mardi Gras. Every square millimetre of
cheek tissue, every fold beneath the gum line, every crevice in the tongue is
swarming…
