DON’T FORGET YOUR TOOTHBRUSH!

As if zombies clawing at your front door weren’t enough to worry about, ZRS contributor Matthew Davidson points out that dental hygiene will quickly become a matter of life and death in an undead world.  In fact, prior to the 20th century, serious oral infections were a leading cause of death in underdeveloped regions, such as the former British Colonies.

Davidson argues that the life expectancy of someone living in a post-apocalyptic community would be greatly reduced simply because of routine dental issues.

“People would need their teeth pulled on a regular basis, and without proper medication and trained professionals, that simple procedure would lead to other serious infections.  Once you’ve lost too many teeth you wouldn’t be able to eat solid foods, and then you’d become a burden to the community.”

On a positive note, he observes that a person with no teeth probably wouldn’t make a very intimidating zombie, so as the likelihood of death-by-infection increases, the chance of being eaten by the undead may proportionately decrease.

Although, getting gummed for hours on end by a hungry pack of toothless zombies might just be a fate even worse than death.