Gutta Percha

What a strange pair of words. Gutta Percha - often hyphenated, sometimes not. Together, they constitute perhaps the most niche/obscure theme in the history of Dead Good blogging. Luckily we've had two most illuminating posts on topic already this week, courtesy of Pam Winning and Terry Quinn, and I urge you to check out their fascinating blogs. That leaves me angling for something different to say, but I have to give a bit of context first, so here's a gutta percha précis.

extracting the sap

The words, from the Malay, translate literally as latex of Sumatra, and the natives of that island in the Malaysian archipelago had been tapping their Palaquium trees for rubbery sap for hundreds of years before European explorers took an interest. The Malays had found that gutta percha possesses what we know today as excellent thermoplastic qualities, it being a polymer, unlike other forms of rubber. This meant it was malleable when heated (even in boiling water), but crystalline and therefore strong and durable once it cooled and set. They used gutta percha to fashion relatively crude domestic utensils, knife-handles and walking-sticks.

When the Europeans seized upon it in the 18th and 19th centuries they recognised a material with properties that would allow them to manufacture a range of both extruded and moulded products at reasonable working temperature, for gutta percha latex did not require vulcanising as other types of latex do. In the 1840s, the Gutta Percha Company was founded in Stratford, East London, by Bewley and Hancock. It imported raw gutta percha by sea from Malaya and fashioned it into a wide range of items from tubular insulation for cables to bottle-stops, jewellery and jewellery boxes, ornate picture frames (see below), rims for spectacles, chess-pieces, clocks, animal figurines, and even furniture, as well as those canes and walking-sticks much as the Malays had done, but in more refined detail and in commercialised industrial quantities. 

gutta-percha picture frame

Of course other companies manufactured products from gutta percha as well, not just in Britain but on the continent and in the USA, making the usual moulded ornamental artefacts such as canes and walking-sticks, figurines, mirror and picture frames, furniture, handles for cutlery and umbrellas, jewellery, lamp-stands, hearing trumpets (again, see below) and tea-trays, plus a few more surprising items including dildos and golf balls (and the less said about the last two of those, the better).

Gutta percha then became a well-known phrase in everyday use in many European languages until the product began to be superseded in the 20th century by more modern, synthetic materials such as Bakelite, Nylon, Perspex and a whole range of polys - polypropylene, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Its modern usage is now almost entirely in the dental sector, as a filling material for root canal work. 

What I find most fascinating is the way that such words come into and pass out of currency with time and technological advances. I'd never heard of gutta percha before a few weeks ago, and I suspect the same is true for many of you reading this, and yet a hundred years ago pretty much everyone would have known what it was, along with drugget (a coarse fabric floor covering), heliograph (a solar morse messaging device), jipper (meat broth or dripping) and teagie (a tea gown).

What words or phrases from our own lifetimes are set eventually for the same curious obscurity? How about cassette, cheque, lorgnette, scrumping, tax disc, twin tub or zozzled? Who knows? That's the frustration of the future. It doesn't speak to us very clearly. 

gutta-percha hearing trumpet

Which leads me on to this latest extrusion from the imaginarium, a Malay monologue perhaps...

Gilded

Speak up and plain if you will. I grow a trifle deaf.

I tire of living with this insufferable heat. The wax,

you know, so thick and sticky with it. Like glue ear

when I was a boy. Talk straight into this trumpet as

it's meant to magnify the sound. Though damned if

it makes much difference. Tell why do they refer to

my wife as Madame Ormolu? I clearly heard it said.

And winding up was mentioned too. Is she aware? I

would know but dare not ask her to her face for fear

of causing some distress. A harmless joke you think?

Or does such disrespect signify a problem I must do

something about? It's a tricky, taxing mess. So speak

and plain if you will. I grow a trifle vexed. Also does

regular as clockwork mean anything to you? I tire of

living with this insufferable heat. Give me some clue.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Gutta-Percha

Gutta-Percha is one of those words that I know but don’t know. Is it something to do with cricket, fishing, India or food? So it’s off to Google and much to my surprise it is a material that was quite revolutionary when it was discovered by the Western world. 

The word actually comes from the Malay. Getah translates as latex. Percha Island is an older name for Sumatra and percha (or perca) is described as a tree which is 5–30 metres tall and up to 1 m in trunk diameter. The leaves are evergreen, alternate or spirally arranged, simple, entire, 8–25 long, glossy green above, and often yellow or glaucous below. The flowers are produced in small clusters along the stems, each flower with a white corolla with four to seven (mostly six) acute lobes. The fruit is an ovoid 3–7 cm berry, containing one to four seeds; in many species, the fruit is edible.

gutta-percha fruit

Long before Gutta-percha was introduced into the Western world, it was used in a less processed form by the natives of the Malaysian archipelago for making knife handles, walking sticks, and other purposes. The first European to discover this material was John Tradescant, who collected it in the far east in 1656. He named this material "Mazer wood". William Montgomerie, a medical officer in imperial service, introduced gutta-percha into practical use in the West. He was the first to appreciate the potential of this material in medicine, and he was awarded the gold medal by the Royal Society of Arts, London in 1843.

tapping trees for latex

Scientifically classified in 1843, it was found to be a useful natural thermoplastic. In 1851, 30,000 long cwt (1,500,000 kg) of gutta-percha was imported into Britain. During the second half of the 19th century, gutta-percha was used for many domestic and industrial purposes such as furniture, golf balls, jewelry, pistol grip handles, canes and walking sticks and it became a household word. Today it is still used in Dentistry but as I’m having a crown fitted next month I’d like to look at its use in the following.

Gutta-percha had properties such as its hard plasticity, electrical insulating properties and its extremely low coefficient of thermal expansion/contraction. It softened at easily attainable temperatures, was mouldable and flexible, was very stable and did not degrade in sea water so thus was particularly important for the manufacture of the first underwater telegraph cables. Indeed, I believe that Michael Faraday said he was gobsmacked by the stuff. There was no other material to match it in the 19th century.

The Gutta Percha Company was established in 1845 and their industrial products included machinery belts, acid-tank linings, and tubes. The extrusion machinery used to make the tubes, modelled it is said on Italian pasta machines, was soon adapted for use in wire covering. This technique was used first to insulate landline cables, and later for submarine cables.

underwater cabling

After the failure of their first cable in 1850 they laid a successful submarine cable from Dover to Calais in 1851. This used two layers of gutta-percha insulation and an armoured outer layer. Previous attempts to use gutta-percha as cable insulation involved compressing two sheets of gutta-percha around the wire, but this left two seams in the insulation. The Gutta Percha Company's tubes were seamless. The conductors of the 1851 cable had an irregular coating of gutta-percha, which had to be shaved away in places, and suffered from air holes and voids. Nonetheless, the cable was a success, and much additional business followed.

In the 20th century synthetic materials such as Bakelite and polyethylene have replaced gutta-percha.

Who would have thought it? There is a poem about Gutta-percha which I've credited as Anon (I can't find the author anyway):

In Praise of Gutta Percha
(to the tune of Dainty Davie)

Of a' the changes that of late
Have shaken Europe's social state—
Let wondering politicians prate,
And 'bout them mak a wark a'—
A subject mair congenial here,
And dearer to a Golfer's ear
I sing—the change brought round last year
By balls of Gutta Percha!

Tho' Gouf be of our games most rare,
Yet truth to speak, the tear and wear
O' balls was felt to be severe,
And source o' great vexation;
When Gourlay's balls cost half-a-croun,
And Allan's no a farthing doun,
The feck o's wad been harried soon,
In this era of taxation.

But times are changed—we dinna care
Though we may ne'er drive leather mair,
Be't stuffed wi' feather or wi' hair—
For noo we're independent.
At last a substance we hae got,
Frae which for scarce mair than a groat,
A ba' comes that can row and stot—
A ba' the most transcendent.

Hail, Gutta Percha, precious gum!
O'er Scotland's links lang may ye bum;
Some purse-proud billies haw and hum,
And say ye're douf at fleein';
But let them try ye fairly out,
Wi' ony balls for days about,
Your merits they will loudly tout,
And own they hae been leein'.

And noo that a' your praise is spent,
Ye'll listen to a friend's comment,
And kindlier tak on wi' paint,
Then ye wad be perfection.
And sure some scientific loon,
On Golfing will bestow a boon,
And gie ye a cosmetic soon,
And brighten your complexion.

                                               Anon

Thanks for reading, Terry Q

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Gutta-percha - Fill Your Roots

 

Gutta-percha is a natural latex material obtained from Palaquium trees native to South East Asia. The sap is collected from trees which have been felled and left to coagulate. It has thermoplastic properties making it suitable for many uses including underwater cables and household electrics. It is used in dentistry as a permanent root filling.

Dental gutta-percha was first used over 170 years ago by American dentist and firearms inventor, Edwin Maynard. I was surprised to learn that he would practice in endodontics at a time in history when it was more usual to remove a troublesome tooth. It’s good that he did, as his legacy lives on. Gutta-percha is one of the most successful and widely used options in endodontics. It can completely seal a root canal which prevents bacteria entering the area and reduces the chance of complications.

If you’ve had dental treatment involving root canal therapy, you’ve probably got gutta-percha in there.

I was a trainee dental nurse when everything was old-fashioned by today’s standards. Modern surgeries look easier to clean and sanitise than the creaky contraption of a dental chair that I had to look after. We had sterilisers in the surgeries that had to be kept boiling all day long. Some instruments were sterilised by flaming with methylated spirits in a kidney dish – not so much that the flames reach the ceiling – such instruments included those used in root canal surgery which had to be thoroughly scrubbed first. To the best of my knowledge, these items are now single-use and disposed of immediately. My colleague, Helen, taught me very well, with lots of patience. We were the same age, but she’d left school before me. I could soon mix Kalzinol on a marble tile without too much mess and make amalgam filling to perfection. Dealing with root canal stuff and gutta-percha took longer to learn as it wasn’t an everyday thing. We shared joy, laughter and grievances about our boss. We did our Dental Surgery Assistant night-school course together and, upon completion, we were proud to wear our yellow belts. This was in the days before dental nurses were required to be qualified. Our careers took different paths. Helen stayed in dentistry, I moved away. We were good friends and kept in touch until Helen passed away a few years ago.

My Haiku, about those times,

It was my old days
When surgeries were basic,
Smelled of Kalzinol.

Trainee Dental Nurse
Eager to learn and succeed,
Finding my way round.

The knowledge of teeth
And all that makes their unique
Physiology.

I mixed a filling
With a small, flat spatula
On a marble tile.

What’s this pink stuff for?
I’ve not seen root canal yet.
Lethal looking files.

It’s gutta-percha
For completing root fillings.
We don’t see many.

Appointment for what?
What’s an apicectomy?
Ah! Fascinating.

PMW 2023

 Thanks for reading, Pam x

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