A cartoon soldier wearing a red hat plays a bugle, while underneath, a nearly illegible title, "Allarme" ("Alarm"), sits on a lightbeam. What could a book with such a cover be? An old children's book? Yes, sure... but only someone with x-ray vision could identify it as a children's book -- about dental health. Allarme-Paradigma Burlesco/Pedagogico di Profilassi delle Malattie Dentarie e di Igiene della Bocca is a small illustrated booklet released in 1954 by Centro Provinciale Scolastico di Assistenza Dentaria (Province School Center of Dental Assistance) in Naples with the purpose of teaching Italian kids about the problems caused by poor dental hygiene. The author, Prof. Mario De Fazio, intended to tell a story that was at once educational and amusing, but ended up creating something disturbing, scary and incredibly weird. Completely unaware of story-telling techniques such as fables or parables, he managed to include only one pedagogical device: TERROR!
Professor and lawyer Ferdinando D'Ambrosio, Government Commissioner, comments in the foreword: "Since people, nowadays, can travel by helicopter, they have no time to waste, and want to read interesting or pleasant thoughts, not something tiring for the spirit." Pleasant? Though I've never flown in a helicopter, I find Allarme visionary and appalling, a sort of "Lodovico Technique" for children who never brush their teeth, where the varied illustrations of L. Gimmelli e A. Longobardo assault one's eyes with a tornado of nightmare visions and exaggerated stereotypes. Anything but "pleasant"
"Once upon a time there was a little girl, named Lalla, crying ... because her little tooth ached," the story begins, in a fairly ordinary way with an Italian Little Lulu weeping desperately because of her toothache. Pages about the little girl's pain and the "little tooth mouse" (the Italian tooth fairy) follow.
But, the terror slide show begins on page eight with a series of images depicting dirt and germs as "threatening monsters" -- improbable worms, winged skulls, snakes spitting fire, little dragons and assorted creatures à la Hieronymus Bosch. A wall is invaded by insects; enormous flies party on a pink cake; worms infest apples and pieces of cheese. "Caution! Danger! Among Lalla's teeth there's a hole": as Lalla's tooth is attacked by the monsters, Prof. De Fazio's twisted imagination spins out of control attempting to explain dental decay.
The same soldier from the cover (we'll find out his name is Cappellone/Big Hat) excitedly blows his trumpet. Alarm! A Violent war is taking place in Lalla's mouth. A human faced tooth is attacked by a group of flying demons tormenting it with axe strokes and fire. But medical forces arrive to fight the evil army. Bombers fly among the monsters. A firefighter extinguishes a fire, a soldier exterminates the horrible, poorly rendered creatures, and a smiling dentist crushes some worms with a tank, leaving only a puddle of blood.
The confused war metaphor continues with the liberators' parade, an army of anthropomorphic dental tools punching hordes of decay demons. The battle ends when a tank (metaphor for a drill?) wrecks the rotten tooth, forcing worms and insects to flee from the gushing blood.
After this shocking climax, the booklet winds down, showing the correct usage of the toothbrush and recommending frequent visits to the dentist. In a delirious chain of grotesque images some soldiers, Cappellone's clones, march happily, carrying big toothbrushes in place of rifles, two dwarves clean an abandoned denture with floss and an absurd smiling mask displays his 32 teeth.
My favorite illustration in Allarme explains that the mouth is "the entrance for infectious diseases": a pair of scissors--symbolizing oral hygiene--cuts off, without mercy, the head of a snake, carrying the names of illnesses like measles, scarlet fever and diphtheria, on its back. In the same plate a doctor examines a little patient's mouth, undisturbed by the bloody monster's martyrdom.
Was our respectable professor obsessed by terrible visions? Did he have a confused mind? Probably. In a serious introductory note addressed to "moms and teachers of primary school" he advised: "you would better teach the children not to be afraid of the doctor."
