About White Oak

                  White Oak Dental, PLLC is located just south of White Oak Township in Michigan. A large old white oak tree stands at the end of the driveway, along with our sign to welcome patients to our office. The design of our building includes a 100 year old one room school house, now used as our reception area. Just north of the town of Stockbridge on M–52, we are surrounded by horses, cow pastures, cornfields and lots of open space. As the township name implies, we live in an area blessed with an abundant concentration of the white oak trees.

As an office dedicated to healing body, mind and spirit, it is fun to reflect on the far ranging significance of our namesake, the white oak. It has applications in medicine, dentistry, food and in the building industry. There are Biblical references to oak trees, as well as profound psychological healing abilities attributed to it.

THE WHITE OAK TREE:

Stephen Foster, master herbalist, contributing editor of Peterson’s Field Guide for Medicinal Plants and Herbs tells us if we are looking for the white oak in the field, it has alternate leaves, with rounded lobes. The surface is smooth inside the inner acorn cap. The white oak yields acorns in one year and has a white nut meat inside.

The red oak has sharp pointed leaves with a thin spike of hair off each leaf tip. It is hairy or fuzzy felt like under the acorn cap. It takes the red oak two years before it yields acorns and it has very bitter yellow nutmeats.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Medicinally, throughout history, it is the inner bark of the white oak tree brewed as a tea that herbalist, John Christopher, tells us is a fabulous mouth wash, gargle and tooth powder. White oak is a folk remedy for cancer. It contains abundant enzymes of tannic acid. Tannic acid has anti-viral, antiseptic, growth depressant, anti-tumor, homeostatic and anti-venomous properties. It has also been used for burns.

The Northeastern Indians, namely the Iroquois, would simply boil the inner bark of white oak and drink the liquid to cure bleeding such as piles or diarrhea due to parasites. Applied externally, it also stopped and dried external wounds and body tissues. The bark was dried and pounded into powder and could be carried quite easily.

The Romans used white oak as an additive to their baths to treat dysentery and hemorrhage.

*Please note white oak bark should not be used on a regular dietary basis as a supplement.

FOR DENTISTRY:

101 Medicinal Herbs an Illustrated Guide tells us it was the European settlers that used white oak inner bark as a gargle for sore throats and an external wash for skin aliments. White oak was listed in the United State Pharmacopedia from 1820 until 1916, and the National Formulary from 1916 to 1936. The inner most bark of the tree is listed there as: an astringent tea most commonly used for cold sores, sore throat, and control of bleeding gums; as a dentifrice, powdered for brushing teeth and gums; and as an antibacterial for pyorrhea and after extractions. The deeply brewed tea is good to tighten up loose teeth and clear gums. It is an effective rinse for under partials or dentures.

George Washington’s dentures were made of dense white oak wood with whole bone teeth hinged with two silver springs made by silversmith Paul Revere.

THE BUILDING INDUSTRY:

Oak wood is practically indestructible. Oaken breakwaters built by the Romans still exist. King Arthur’s Round Table, made from a single slice of oak cut from an enormous bole, still exists and is on display in Winchester, England. Oak logs buried 1000 years ago have been recovered, still in good condition for building. It is not unusual for an oak to live 500, 1000, even 2000 years. Viking ships depended on strong oak oars and masts for their ocean going ships.

The original part of the dental office, the old schoolhouse was built with strong oak wood. When the old exterior wall between the old and the new part had to be cut open, what seemed like a quick task ended up taking over half a day as the old wood tore up several saw blades because of its strength.

White oak was used in early industrial America for other purposes, as well. Before the discovery of rubber, it was the white oak tannins* that cured the buffalo hides used to make the large broad leather belts of steam engines and conveyors used in factories. These same leather belts allowed the giant steam tractors that plowed the earth to add a belted attachment to convert the power of the tractor into a portable outdoor sawmill. These tanned, belted sawmills then produced siding, shingles and beams used in all early farm communities and towns.

*White oak’s tanning ability also tanned or cured the horse, deer, buffalo and other small animal hides used for the leather of shoes, hats, coats and belts of the clothing industry.

FOR FOOD:

Herbalist John Heinerman describes the white oak food used as nuts, flour or meal and candy. Although a few white oaks have acorns sweet enough to be eaten raw or roasted, most oaks have extremely bitter acorns. Happily, the bitterness is due to an abundance of tannin which is soluble in water. Whole kernels, stripped of their shells and boiled in repeated changes of water until the water no longer turns brown can be roasted and eaten as nuts or dipped in sugar syrup and eaten as candy.

The Indians dried and crushed acorns, placed them in porous baskets, and left them in running streams of fresh water. The water removed the tannins over time. They then could be dried, ground into meal and used to make excellent breads and muffins.

Carolyn Niethammer author of American Indian Food and Lore writes: “It is only those native dishes with special appeal that have survived time to appear regularly on the dinner table. Acorn stew is one that has not faded in popularity. Many Apache housewives still keep a store of acorn meal on hand to make this much relished dish. Some collect and use more than one hundred pounds of acorns a year.”

ACORN STEW RECIPE
Yield 3-4 servings
1 pound stewing beef (or buffalo, deer, etc)
One half cup finely ground acorn meal
Salt, pepper to taste.
Place meat in heavy pan and add water to cover. Put lid on pan and simmer until it is very tender and it is almost falling apart. Remove the meat from the liquid and chop the meat into very fine pieces. Return meat to the liquid in the pot. Stir in acorn meal. Add salt and pepper to taste. Heat and serve.

According to Grace Mitchell, leader of the Yavapai tribe, Yavapai cowboys who work on the desert carry only a pocketful of acorns and some water for lunch. “They say it really fills them up,” she remarked. Other southwestern Indians who use acorns include the Pimas, the Papagos, and the Navajos.

The Apache women crack the acorn shells on a flat stone using a 6 or 7 inch stone cylinder which they roll over the nuts. A regular metate works just as well, as would any two flat stones to make the acorn meal.

BIBLICAL REFERENCES TO THE OAK:

Reese Dubin in the book Miracle Food Cures from the Bible makes reference to oak as indicated below.

“… and he was strong as the oak. Amos2:9

” The Lord appeared to Abraham by the Terebinths*[oaks] of Mamre.” Genesis 18:1. The oak was always respected and even venerated in biblical times for its large size and strength. Abraham’s oak was held in especially high regard, not only because it was the place where God and His angels spoke to Abraham, but because under the shade of a holm oak, after His resurrection, Jesus appeared to the saints. It became the tree of Mary, mother of Christ, its branches uplifted to heaven in prayer.

“Oaks attain an awesome height, up to 150 feet or more, indeed appearing to soar toward heaven.”

*The terebinths of Mamre are widely believed by scientists and biblical scholars to have been oaks. The oak is more plentiful in Galilee, and through Palestine as a whole. After visiting the Holy Land in 1860, one scientist stated: “Abraham’s celebrated tree at Hebron…is now a venerable oak, and I saw no terebinth in the neighborhood.”

FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL PURPOSES:

Iridologist Bernard Jensen used to say to me that the closer the fibers of the person’s iris were together that they reminded him of how tight the grain of the oak wood was compared to other “trees”. He would say you can tell how strong a person was by looking at the eye (through the iris fibers). “Some of us are oaks, some of us are pine and some of us are burlap.”
Few know that the White Oak also has powerful psychological/spiritual aspects. The most remarkable application of the white oak is the beneficial psychological spiritual balancing influences discovered by Dr. Edward Bach. “The homeopathic remedy of oak flowers restores mental imbalances by imparting its strength and stability vibrations. Benefits are to people with despondency, despair, exhaustion with unceasing effort.” Philip Chandler writes in the Illustrated Handbook of Bach Flowers Remedies.

The oak people struggle on in the face of every difficulty. They never give up hope. They are ceaseless in their efforts to find a cure when they are sick; they are untiring their efforts to improve their condition. Though the oak type may feel despondent, and though they often suffer from despair due to the conditions imposed upon them, they will continue to fight. The oak type likes to help other people of their own free will, and for this reason, they sometimes overwork. They are the mainstay of the family, and sometimes they plod on from day to day, hiding their tiredness of ill health from others lest their despair or despondency be discovered. The oak type, like the tree itself, are strong physically, and they can stand great strain; they are very patient, and full of common sense. Yet there can come a time when the despondency and despair becomes too much for human endurance; then it is when the oak person can crack, and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dr. Bach described the positive aspects of the oak as: perseverance, courage and stability under all conditions.

Concerning the Bach Flower System, “I couldn’t function well in the office if it were not for the uplifting properties of Rescue Remedy used for our patients,” states Dr. Mann. “The oak homeopathic remedy and the entire Bach system are God’s garden helpers for mood stability, emotional balance and spiritual restoration. The Bach flower system is well worth a further study for every soul with my highest recommendation.”

In closing, however you view it, whether as medicine, dentifrice, food, construction material, spiritual or psychological stabilizer, the white oak is an example and symbol of our care goals. We at White Oak Dental are concerned about all of these aspects for our patients as we treat them. Our mission as healers is to help our patients achieve their optimum health goals. May we be of help to you?

Sincerely,

The Drs. and staff at White Oak Dental