There is a joke on the Internet, called Rule 34, which states: “If it exists, there is porn of it somewhere on the Internet.” Meaning, someone, somewhere, has taken those pleasant memories you have of Balki Bartokomous and Cousin Larry from “Perfect Strangers” and turned them into dirty fan-fiction.  

There should also be a rule about books. Since books existed long before the Internet, let’s call it Rule 3: “If it exists, there is a book written about it somewhere.” Heading the list of unbelievably unusual things about which books have been written is “The Toothpick: Technology and Culture,” by Henry Petroski. The toothpick?!! What, a long time ago, someone used a splinter to dislodge a piece of wooly mammoth meat from his teeth, and the rest is history, right? Wrong. So wrong.

Petroski, whose previous books include “The Book on the Bookshelf” and “The Evolution of Useful Things,” has 443 pages to prove that the little sliver of wood that holds our sandwiches together, and later dislodges morsels of said sandwich from our teeth, has a rich, colorful history, dating back to the beginning of humankind. While the idea of reading about the history of toothpicks may sound as exciting as, oh, watching toothpicks be made, Petroski has managed to make it a fascinating subject. He breaks the book down into delightful little chapters full of history and lore. You’ll never look at your cocktail umbrella the same way again.

Petroski explains that, “picking one’s teeth is believed to be the oldest human habit,” citing fossilized teeth with grooves in them found in 1911 as evidence. The teeth were found at the La Quina Neanderthal site, and the French anthropologist who discovered them claimed the grooves had been made by “abrasive toothpicks.” Subsequent findings of grooved teeth from the remains of other ancient cultures, such as Canary Islanders and aborigines, support that claim.

As with all other aspects of life in history, social standing played a role in what kind of toothpick you had. Poor people had to rely on toothpicks made of grasses or wood, whereas rich people had toothpicks fashioned from precious metals. An ornate toiletry set from 3500 B.C., discovered in a king’s tomb in the city of Ur (now part of Iraq), included a “spatulate, stiletto-like instrument running to a point” made of gold, which is claimed to be a toothpick. The Romans are said to have had specific slaves trained just for cleaning their teeth with a toothpick. (Another great Roman idea: cure an infected tooth by prodding it with a splinter of a bone from a dead dog.)

After the fall of Rome, Petroski writes, the toothpick fell out of fashion until medieval times, when “keeping the toothpick in the mouth all day was common habit.” Indeed, an illustration from the 16th century shows a man with a wedge of wood the size of a pencil sticking out of his mouth. Even royalty took up the habit. One of “the last actions of Charles the first, when preparing for his execution, was to give away his gold toothpick as a present or memorial to some individual on the scaffold.”
Humans aren’t the only species to use toothpicks. Chimpanzees (surprise, surprise) are said to have been seen using “bits of straw in much the same way as does a farmer,” and there are accounts of pet monkeys who have trained themselves to use actual toothpicks in the correct manner after meals.

Petroski also discusses some inaccurate historical accounts claiming that the toothpick was a more recent New England invention. Charles Forster, of Charlestown, Massachusetts, is often credited with the invention. But, Petroski explains how Forster’s work in Brazil for his family’s furniture business first introduced him to the concept of the toothpick, which he then began producing when he got back to the States in the mid-1800s. The first toothpicks Forster made were hand-whittled. Toothpicks were not mass produced by machines until 1861, when Forster acquired the rights to a machine that had originally been used in the making of shoes for something called shoe-pegging.

“The Toothpick” is simply wonderful, never becoming dull, and Petroski shows his smarts by taking one of the most seemingly basic, inane things and turning it into a fascinating item of interest and historical significance. Rule 35 (which we just made up): “If you write an amazing book about something, everyone will talk about it.”