An ‘indentured’ tale
“The malster’s lack of teeth appeared not to sensibly diminish his powers as a mill. He had been without them for so many years that toothlessness was felt less to be a defect than hard gums an acquisition.” Now there’s a glass half full minus the dentures sentence. No martyrs in the malthouse in Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd then.
In 1994 what did I see in the Jemaa el-Fna market square in Marakesh? Dentures and miscellaneous teeth for sale. There they were, displayed to full grimacing effect on a ground cloth by a laughing trader who himself clearly eschewed the ridiculous luxury of a decent set of chompers. I silently paired each set with one of those skeleton soldiers in Jason and the Argonauts. I wondered if the laughing trader had ever heard of that more ghoulish class of tooth fairies who scavenged the battlefields of Waterloo for the front teeth of thousands of dead soldiers one hundred and seventy years earlier. This tragic harvest would be snapped up by dentists who had queues of wealthy patients desperate for replacement teeth, albeit at an exorbitant price. So many teeth wasted on corpses; so many toothless people alive and ready to give them a new home. After assuring the laughing purveyor of second-hand dentures that my pearlies did not need replacing, I turned my attention to the lady selling bracelets; or should I say, she turned her attention to me. She must have had at least one hundred bracelets on each arm and she obviously thought I looked like an easy sell. After displaying the contents of her mobile shop she smiled broadly, exposing what I can only describe as a dental shop of horrors – a post-apocalyptic scene of disintegrating skyscrapers being sucked into a black hole. Not needing any bracelets that day I politely resisted her hard sell techniques. Feigning a terrific interest in some snake charmers, the dental leit motif bizarrely continuing, I was momentarily brought back to my school days and reciting King Lear’s lament, “How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child!”
Unlike Thomas Hardy’s malster, George Washington was a martyr to his teeth though, and when he became president in 1789 he had only one natural tooth left in his head. For the stately inauguration not only was he wearing a newly powdered wig, he was also wearing his first full set of dentures, the first of several tortuous devices he would endure until his death in 1799. Contrary to popular belief these were not made of wood, so his martyrdom did not extend to splinters in the gum, but they were what you might call a lucky dip. Made by a resourceful John Greenwood, the upper plate had ivory teeth, while the lower plate had eight human teeth fastened by gold pivots that screwed into a hippopotamus ivory base. It was the spiral springs though, securing the said lucky dip to his mouth that earned him a place in the ‘horrible dental history’ hall of fame. I’m no DIY aficionado, but it seems to me that Washington’s dentures would have made a great mouse trap. In fact, it was the severe pain caused by his dentures that prevented Washington from giving his second inaugural address.
Long before Washington though, if you were a wealthy medieval merchant with a pain in the gob, the surgeon would make a house call with his toolkit. Tooth decay would be removed with a metal rod that was rotated between the hands, while temporary soft fillings postponed the shock of cold air rushing through the open cavity. Dentistry for poorer medieval people on the other hand took place in the market-square where self-taught vagabonds would extract teeth for a small fee. Drums rolled loudly to drown the screams of the patient, and to avoid frightening away the custom. Think Nazi dentist Szell getting creative with a drill without the local anaesthetic in Marathon Man (1976).
In fact up until the early 1700s most dentistry was provided by so called ‘barber surgeons’ who also did minor surgery, cut hair, applied leeches, and performed embalming. Imagine nipping down to the undertakers to get a number three or have an ingrown toenail removed? They were all in on the act. Even Paul Revere, famous for his "midnight ride," was by trade a metalworker who constructed dentures from ivory and gold.
Nicholas Dubois de Chemant, an 18th century French dentist had at least one happy customer, Étienne Geoffroy. Publicly declaring the amazing success of his new false teeth, Geoffroy went on to denounce his previous set. “I further attest that the teeth of sea horse, which I wore for only one year, had so much disgusted me by the bad smell that they gave to my breath, …that I had taken them out to eat!” This Geoffroy guy must have had a tiny mouth, or was he confusing a sea horse with a racehorse perhaps? If he had been forced to keep those sea horse teeth though, he may, or may not, have been interested in an Ancient Greek cure for bad breath. You took the desiccated head of a hare, and three mice with all their intestines removed except the liver, ground them to a fine powder, mixed them with chalk and rubbed the questionable substance onto the teeth with unwashed wool. I don’t know if you desiccated the hare’s head yourself or if you bought it ready desiccated. Same with the mice, could you get them ready emptied, saving the liver, or did you have to do that disgusting task yourself? Why a hare and not a rabbit? Why three mice, and not two, or five? Surely to God a good gargling of Ouzo would have done the trick, or unwashed wool soaked in Ouzo?
King George lll was another satisfied customer. His dentist, William Green was a class act when it came to making dentures, so much so that his handiwork was praised in poetry by one Charles Churchill, ‘Teeth white as ever teeth were seen / Delivered from the hand of Green.’
If like George Washington though, you were trying to hold on to your teeth, you may have been desperate enough to try a remedy devised by Pliny the Elder, which involved tying a frog to your jaws for making loose teeth become firm again. Pliny the Elder of course, had opinions on, and remedies for, everything, and he was clearly unburdened with even the most rudimentary understanding of the laws of physics, or plain common sense for that matter. Failing this bizarre frog leap of faith, you could have resorted to that other Middle Ages mouth rinse for tooth decay – wine in which dogs teeth had been boiled. I don’t know if the idea was to drink yourself into oblivion so that you wouldn’t feel the pain, or if it really mattered whose teeth were floating in the vino. While it may not have given you that ring of confidence, it more than likely would have made you too drunk to care.
A shorter version of this - I wish I'd looked after me teeth - was broadcast on Sunday Miscellany RTE Radio 1 on Sunday June 2nd 2002.
Copyright Berni Dwan 2002, 2015
“The malster’s lack of teeth appeared not to sensibly diminish his powers as a mill. He had been without them for so many years that toothlessness was felt less to be a defect than hard gums an acquisition.” Now there’s a glass half full minus the dentures sentence. No martyrs in the malthouse in Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd then.
In 1994 what did I see in the Jemaa el-Fna market square in Marakesh? Dentures and miscellaneous teeth for sale. There they were, displayed to full grimacing effect on a ground cloth by a laughing trader who himself clearly eschewed the ridiculous luxury of a decent set of chompers. I silently paired each set with one of those skeleton soldiers in Jason and the Argonauts. I wondered if the laughing trader had ever heard of that more ghoulish class of tooth fairies who scavenged the battlefields of Waterloo for the front teeth of thousands of dead soldiers one hundred and seventy years earlier. This tragic harvest would be snapped up by dentists who had queues of wealthy patients desperate for replacement teeth, albeit at an exorbitant price. So many teeth wasted on corpses; so many toothless people alive and ready to give them a new home. After assuring the laughing purveyor of second-hand dentures that my pearlies did not need replacing, I turned my attention to the lady selling bracelets; or should I say, she turned her attention to me. She must have had at least one hundred bracelets on each arm and she obviously thought I looked like an easy sell. After displaying the contents of her mobile shop she smiled broadly, exposing what I can only describe as a dental shop of horrors – a post-apocalyptic scene of disintegrating skyscrapers being sucked into a black hole. Not needing any bracelets that day I politely resisted her hard sell techniques. Feigning a terrific interest in some snake charmers, the dental leit motif bizarrely continuing, I was momentarily brought back to my school days and reciting King Lear’s lament, “How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child!”
Unlike Thomas Hardy’s malster, George Washington was a martyr to his teeth though, and when he became president in 1789 he had only one natural tooth left in his head. For the stately inauguration not only was he wearing a newly powdered wig, he was also wearing his first full set of dentures, the first of several tortuous devices he would endure until his death in 1799. Contrary to popular belief these were not made of wood, so his martyrdom did not extend to splinters in the gum, but they were what you might call a lucky dip. Made by a resourceful John Greenwood, the upper plate had ivory teeth, while the lower plate had eight human teeth fastened by gold pivots that screwed into a hippopotamus ivory base. It was the spiral springs though, securing the said lucky dip to his mouth that earned him a place in the ‘horrible dental history’ hall of fame. I’m no DIY aficionado, but it seems to me that Washington’s dentures would have made a great mouse trap. In fact, it was the severe pain caused by his dentures that prevented Washington from giving his second inaugural address.
Long before Washington though, if you were a wealthy medieval merchant with a pain in the gob, the surgeon would make a house call with his toolkit. Tooth decay would be removed with a metal rod that was rotated between the hands, while temporary soft fillings postponed the shock of cold air rushing through the open cavity. Dentistry for poorer medieval people on the other hand took place in the market-square where self-taught vagabonds would extract teeth for a small fee. Drums rolled loudly to drown the screams of the patient, and to avoid frightening away the custom. Think Nazi dentist Szell getting creative with a drill without the local anaesthetic in Marathon Man (1976).
In fact up until the early 1700s most dentistry was provided by so called ‘barber surgeons’ who also did minor surgery, cut hair, applied leeches, and performed embalming. Imagine nipping down to the undertakers to get a number three or have an ingrown toenail removed? They were all in on the act. Even Paul Revere, famous for his "midnight ride," was by trade a metalworker who constructed dentures from ivory and gold.
Nicholas Dubois de Chemant, an 18th century French dentist had at least one happy customer, Étienne Geoffroy. Publicly declaring the amazing success of his new false teeth, Geoffroy went on to denounce his previous set. “I further attest that the teeth of sea horse, which I wore for only one year, had so much disgusted me by the bad smell that they gave to my breath, …that I had taken them out to eat!” This Geoffroy guy must have had a tiny mouth, or was he confusing a sea horse with a racehorse perhaps? If he had been forced to keep those sea horse teeth though, he may, or may not, have been interested in an Ancient Greek cure for bad breath. You took the desiccated head of a hare, and three mice with all their intestines removed except the liver, ground them to a fine powder, mixed them with chalk and rubbed the questionable substance onto the teeth with unwashed wool. I don’t know if you desiccated the hare’s head yourself or if you bought it ready desiccated. Same with the mice, could you get them ready emptied, saving the liver, or did you have to do that disgusting task yourself? Why a hare and not a rabbit? Why three mice, and not two, or five? Surely to God a good gargling of Ouzo would have done the trick, or unwashed wool soaked in Ouzo?
King George lll was another satisfied customer. His dentist, William Green was a class act when it came to making dentures, so much so that his handiwork was praised in poetry by one Charles Churchill, ‘Teeth white as ever teeth were seen / Delivered from the hand of Green.’
If like George Washington though, you were trying to hold on to your teeth, you may have been desperate enough to try a remedy devised by Pliny the Elder, which involved tying a frog to your jaws for making loose teeth become firm again. Pliny the Elder of course, had opinions on, and remedies for, everything, and he was clearly unburdened with even the most rudimentary understanding of the laws of physics, or plain common sense for that matter. Failing this bizarre frog leap of faith, you could have resorted to that other Middle Ages mouth rinse for tooth decay – wine in which dogs teeth had been boiled. I don’t know if the idea was to drink yourself into oblivion so that you wouldn’t feel the pain, or if it really mattered whose teeth were floating in the vino. While it may not have given you that ring of confidence, it more than likely would have made you too drunk to care.
A shorter version of this - I wish I'd looked after me teeth - was broadcast on Sunday Miscellany RTE Radio 1 on Sunday June 2nd 2002.
Copyright Berni Dwan 2002, 2015
