Wisdom Teeth

They are called wisdom teeth — and that is no coincidence. They are the last teeth to emerge, usually between the seventeenth and twenty-fifth year of life, precisely in the phase when a person should stop being a child and begin thinking as an adult. Adult in the deepest sense: with their own judgment, their own direction, their own inner authority.

But in many people these teeth do not break through properly. They lie at an angle in the jaw, wedged sideways against the neighbouring teeth, half hidden beneath the gum, impacted in the bone. Dentistry speaks of retention or impaction — the tooth does not have enough space, or it grows in the wrong direction. The jaw is too narrow. The breakthrough fails.