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CLASSIC: When Dentist Sold Dentures Made with Corpse Teeth · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. We are on a
0:04
Speaker 1: little bit of a vacation. We we got so hyped.
0:08
Speaker 1: If we got so hyped, nol Well, we rediscovered one
0:11
Speaker 1: of our favorite catchphrases. Yeah, straight seahorse teeth. Baby. Um,
0:17
Speaker 1: it's true though you speak the truth. We are on
0:19
Speaker 1: a microcation. Uh and uh we thought, as we actually
0:23
Speaker 1: mentioned in the previous episode, uh that you've heard this week, um,
0:28
Speaker 1: where we rediscovered the expression straight seahorse teeth. Uh. There's
0:32
Speaker 1: an episode that that came from, and it was one
0:34
Speaker 1: of our early ones, and it was about, um, among
0:37
Speaker 1: other things, just the history of kind of weird dental work,
0:41
Speaker 1: but but not on a triggering kind of like you know,
0:44
Speaker 1: scared of the title is when dentists sold dentures made
0:49
Speaker 1: with corpse teeth. So if you asked me, if you
0:52
Speaker 1: were like Ben, is this is this a doubter episode,
0:55
Speaker 1: my answer would be, oddly enough, absolutely not. And that's
1:01
Speaker 1: no it Max Sadden. This is definitely before his time,
1:04
Speaker 1: downer in places because it doesn't involve you know, corpses
1:08
Speaker 1: and the the unauthorized use of their teeth. But it's
1:13
Speaker 1: also delightful things like like seahorse teeth involved as well,
1:16
Speaker 1: So uh, it's it's quite the romp if I if
1:19
Speaker 1: I recall correctly, Max, we think this one is straight
1:23
Speaker 1: sea horse teeth, and we hope you enjoy it as
1:26
Speaker 1: much as we hope are fellow ridiculous historians enjoy it.
1:30
Speaker 1: I think it's a good phrase. I think it's cool.
1:32
Speaker 1: I think it works to quote Johathan Strickling the Quister
1:36
Speaker 1: roll that beautiful bean footage. It's no secret that one
2:05
Speaker 1: of the average americans least favorite things to do is
2:10
Speaker 1: to go to the dentist. Not not super popular with
2:13
Speaker 1: a lot of people, Ben, I'm fond of going to
2:15
Speaker 1: the dentist. Does that make me weird? No? No, it's
2:18
Speaker 1: just another reason that I find you extraordinary. All extraordinary
2:22
Speaker 1: just another word for weird, though, isn't it, Ben? No,
2:24
Speaker 1: I feel like it has a better connotation nowadays. Although
2:28
Speaker 1: extraordinary could be anything unusual or anomalous, nowadays we usually
2:32
Speaker 1: say extraordinary when we mean something is good. Do you
2:35
Speaker 1: know what, Ben, I'll take it as a compliment them awesome.
2:38
Speaker 1: Speaking of extraordinary, let's introduce everyone to our super producer,
2:43
Speaker 1: Casey Pegrum. But I don't want to get lost on
2:47
Speaker 1: this conversational you you genuinely do like going to the dentist. No,
2:56
Speaker 1: I was just I was gonna go with you on it.
2:58
Speaker 1: I know I couldn't. I could. I cann't lie to
3:00
Speaker 1: the people, man. Now, I was just trying to be extraordinary.
3:04
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's it's weird because, uh, dentistry is
3:09
Speaker 1: it's a necessary thing, right, It's come a long way,
3:12
Speaker 1: and it has come such a long way. You will
3:15
Speaker 1: hear some critics of modern dentistry say that they're purposefully
3:20
Speaker 1: not pursuing the newest technological breakthroughs or techniques. But you
3:25
Speaker 1: and I grew up in the days and in case
3:27
Speaker 1: you as well, grew up in the days where those
3:29
Speaker 1: mercury fillings were quite common, remember those. I don't you
3:33
Speaker 1: know what's funny. I I never had a cavity until
3:35
Speaker 1: like last year, because I have benefited from a development
3:40
Speaker 1: and modern dentistry called celent, which is a thing they
3:43
Speaker 1: did to like every kid in my town. I guess
3:45
Speaker 1: because I know lots of other kids that got it.
3:48
Speaker 1: But I've also talked people that I have no idea
3:49
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, and it's some kind of like
3:51
Speaker 1: extra coating they put on your teeth that kind of
3:53
Speaker 1: cases them in and keeps them safe from all the
3:55
Speaker 1: horrible stuff that you shove into your mouth as a child.
3:58
Speaker 1: So I had this like false sense of security and
4:01
Speaker 1: this false sense of superiority that I had never had
4:04
Speaker 1: a cavity, and then all of a sudden, at thirty
4:06
Speaker 1: four years old, getting cavities. So you know, uh, well,
4:10
Speaker 1: can't you get them recealed or something? Yeah, that's a
4:13
Speaker 1: good question, Benn, that to which I have no answer.
4:15
Speaker 1: I think it's something only children are permitted to do.
4:17
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I don't know that. Like the Shining and
4:21
Speaker 1: the Stephen King universe. Uh well, that's not quite that's
4:24
Speaker 1: not quite true because Hollrand also at the Shining, he
4:28
Speaker 1: did have the shinning. Yeah, but he Oh yeah, I
4:30
Speaker 1: don't want to get a siege. But we're talking about
4:33
Speaker 1: dentistry and how far it's come. We're very very lucky
4:38
Speaker 1: today and comparison to dental patients of the past. You
4:45
Speaker 1: and I quite recently learned that a little bit about
4:50
Speaker 1: the history of dentistry and just how gruesome it was
4:55
Speaker 1: in way back in eighteen fifteen. I guess the foundations
4:58
Speaker 1: what will become modern dent history existed, but it was
5:02
Speaker 1: still in its infancy, and people had terrible, terrible teeth.
5:08
Speaker 1: You know, you would just your teeth would get ground
5:10
Speaker 1: down over time, depending on your diet, You would lose
5:14
Speaker 1: teeth to infection or lack of hygiene and maintenance. And
5:20
Speaker 1: it didn't matter whether you were popper or a prince,
5:24
Speaker 1: your teeth would probably at some point in your life
5:26
Speaker 1: become problematic. Yeah, especially in the upper class. And like
5:29
Speaker 1: the mid to late seventeen hundreds, when you know ingestion
5:33
Speaker 1: of sugar by the upper class was on the rise.
5:36
Speaker 1: That really precipitated that rot and that irreversible decay that
5:41
Speaker 1: would happen in the mouths of these aristocrats, which led
5:44
Speaker 1: to things like horrible, horrible, stinking breath and like a
5:49
Speaker 1: funky kind of rotting taste in your mouth. And no
5:52
Speaker 1: nobody wants that, So what would they do. They would
5:54
Speaker 1: just like get rid of all their their real teeth
5:58
Speaker 1: and get them replaced with some hand d dandy dentures.
6:01
Speaker 1: And we should also point out these problems. I think
6:04
Speaker 1: that was the primary problem, but there was also a
6:06
Speaker 1: compounding factor, which was people would try to whiten their
6:12
Speaker 1: teeth as well by using acidic solutions. So if the
6:15
Speaker 1: sugar didn't get you, the acid would That's the thing
6:19
Speaker 1: you always think about when you're you're talking about, you know,
6:21
Speaker 1: past forms of technology that we now know and love
6:24
Speaker 1: and and and benefit from. There's a lot of just
6:27
Speaker 1: kind of trial and error, and it's like, oh, this
6:29
Speaker 1: does want sort of like a mercury as laccidents, Like, oh,
6:32
Speaker 1: this definitely does one thing, but it also does this
6:34
Speaker 1: other thing that I'm not fully aware of, and that
6:37
Speaker 1: is is ultimately worse than the thing that it's fixing, right, right,
6:41
Speaker 1: But let's make sure my bile is correct. Of course,
6:44
Speaker 1: so they're they're on a search for dentures. They know
6:48
Speaker 1: enough about human anatomy to know that it is uh
6:52
Speaker 1: virtually impossible, well, let's say extraordinary for people to grow
6:56
Speaker 1: multiple sets of teeth. It does happen, but not often.
6:59
Speaker 1: And that that's when you start to find advertisements. He said,
7:04
Speaker 1: this was late eighteenth century, right. We found an advertisement
7:07
Speaker 1: reprinted in an excellent BBC article that we won't won't
7:11
Speaker 1: give you the headline of yet, but we we can
7:14
Speaker 1: just go ahead and read it for you. It says
7:17
Speaker 1: wanted several human front teeth to prevent unnecessary applications. Those
7:23
Speaker 1: only are wanted that are sent from the continent. Applied
7:27
Speaker 1: to Dr Wolfendale, Dentist number twenty one, Dova Street, Piccadilly.
7:33
Speaker 1: That guy's a dentist, but he's not saying that he'll
7:36
Speaker 1: fix teeth. He wants to buy teeth. That seems a
7:40
Speaker 1: little weird, doesn't it. Yeah, but not really, because here's
7:43
Speaker 1: the thing that I was intrigued by the most popular
7:48
Speaker 1: way of making are the most popular and cost effective
7:51
Speaker 1: way let's say, of making dentures was out of like
7:54
Speaker 1: elephant ivory, for example, or any other type of bone material.
7:59
Speaker 1: But didn't think about this at all. That stuff does
8:01
Speaker 1: not have enamel, which is nature's sealant, and that is
8:06
Speaker 1: what keeps your teeth from or at least you know,
8:09
Speaker 1: slows down the inevitable process of your teeth rotting out
8:12
Speaker 1: of your head. So if you have these, um, these
8:15
Speaker 1: and these bone dentures in your mouth, they will eventually
8:18
Speaker 1: also begin to rot. Yeah, it doesn't matter if their
8:21
Speaker 1: wal wrist, tusk, elephant tusks, hippopotamus teeth, they will eventually
8:26
Speaker 1: fall the same way, especially if you don't change your diet,
8:29
Speaker 1: and I believe was it um it was George Washington, right,
8:33
Speaker 1: who had dentures made of carved hippopotamus ivory. I think
8:37
Speaker 1: that's right, And that was Wasn't that like one of
8:39
Speaker 1: those kind of misnomer stories whereveryone's like he had wooden teeth?
8:42
Speaker 1: The truth was a little bit more still weird, but
8:45
Speaker 1: but not wouldn't as gross? Well, wouldn't that would just
8:48
Speaker 1: get disgusting very quick, wouldn't it? Because how often wouldn't it?
8:52
Speaker 1: How often would you have to replace those wooden dentures?
8:56
Speaker 1: Think about this, Think about a wooden spoon and how
9:00
Speaker 1: it holds up in the dishwasher, for example, or you know,
9:04
Speaker 1: upon repeated use, it starts to get kind of soft
9:06
Speaker 1: and weird and squishy and rough around the edges. Anyway,
9:10
Speaker 1: point being the solution, the more expensive solution, because a
9:16
Speaker 1: pair of ivory dentures, So it's okay, let let me
9:18
Speaker 1: be backtracks a little bit. They would be full ivory
9:21
Speaker 1: dentures where they would be carved out of a single
9:23
Speaker 1: piece of ivory. Then the higher quality ones would have
9:26
Speaker 1: a base of ivory, and they would have human teeth.
9:29
Speaker 1: To your point, been human teeth for sale or you know,
9:32
Speaker 1: seeking human teeth and the want ads um stitched in
9:36
Speaker 1: or actually kind of like wired in. I believe they
9:38
Speaker 1: were like pins. There were there are different ways of
9:40
Speaker 1: doing it. Pins or wires were the two primary men,
9:43
Speaker 1: that's right. So this those would cost a hundred pounds
9:47
Speaker 1: with the human teeth, and that meant that they were
9:50
Speaker 1: relegated to the upper crust of the aristocracy, even the
9:54
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm not even gonna ask you to
9:55
Speaker 1: inflation calculator that, but that would have been a dear,
9:57
Speaker 1: dear price. Actually, friends, I have some I have some
10:01
Speaker 1: good news here. Because the uninety Kingdom has been around
10:05
Speaker 1: so long, we can take a stab at some inflation calculations.
10:10
Speaker 1: And I'm so excited about that. I'm going to give
10:12
Speaker 1: you a pass for actuallying me. I feel like I
10:15
Speaker 1: actually both of us. So one pounds in sevento is
10:21
Speaker 1: approximately equivalent to fourteen thousand, three hundred pounds in eighteen.
10:28
Speaker 1: And let's take it a little bit further. Let's convert
10:32
Speaker 1: pounds to dollars, because if we're being honest, I'm not
10:36
Speaker 1: sure about that conversion rate. I don't know offhand how
10:39
Speaker 1: much that is. I'm gonna guess like casey on the
10:42
Speaker 1: case was he right? Let's see, let's see us in
10:46
Speaker 1: a pound like roughly two dollars. I know it changes,
10:51
Speaker 1: so that's why I said roughly, guys, roughly was accounting
10:53
Speaker 1: for fluctuation. So would that be okay? So it's fourteen thousand,
10:57
Speaker 1: three hundred pounds. That equates too. We have a drum
11:01
Speaker 1: roll please three seven? The pound is crater. Well, you
11:15
Speaker 1: know that that is in the news right now, is
11:16
Speaker 1: that right? Yeah, Brexit is doing all sorts of shenanigans.
11:21
Speaker 1: I gotta buy something stuff from the UK. That's a
11:23
Speaker 1: good idea, you know. I actual not to derail us
11:25
Speaker 1: too farm, but I still can't hear Brexit and not
11:27
Speaker 1: think of breakfast. Really not as tasty. Brexit is going
11:32
Speaker 1: to be a future episode of ridiculous history. If we're
11:35
Speaker 1: still doing this show twenty years later. We are. We
11:38
Speaker 1: are too. I hope he's love the energy for it.
11:46
Speaker 1: So yeah, people would pay enormous amounts of money for
11:49
Speaker 1: these dentures that were as you said, all the primo
11:53
Speaker 1: ones have an ivory base individually sewed in or penned
11:57
Speaker 1: in or wired in human teeth. And the reason that
12:00
Speaker 1: people would pay more for This is because the slightly
12:04
Speaker 1: lower tier ivory dentures were, as you said, a block
12:09
Speaker 1: of ivory where someone would just carve teeth looking notches
12:13
Speaker 1: into these things, and they looked terrible because they were
12:16
Speaker 1: way too white, and they also were clearly one chomper.
12:22
Speaker 1: That's right, yeah, exactly. But back to human teeth are obviously,
12:26
Speaker 1: like you said, Ben, because of the you know, the
12:29
Speaker 1: finite nature of our ability to grow teeth. We got
12:33
Speaker 1: the baby ones and then we got the big boy
12:35
Speaker 1: and girl ones and then we're done. That's it. They
12:38
Speaker 1: are in short supply because nobody wants to part with
12:40
Speaker 1: them if they can help it. Because what happens when
12:42
Speaker 1: you lose your teeth, Ben, you can't talk, You sound
12:45
Speaker 1: like all mumble mouth. You get these like sunken cheeks
12:48
Speaker 1: looking things. You know, you've ever seen somebody with dentures.
12:51
Speaker 1: Take them out. It's a thing. Uh yeah, it's it's
12:55
Speaker 1: a definite weird moment. No shade on anyone that is
12:58
Speaker 1: missing their teeth or any elderly folks in the audience.
13:00
Speaker 1: It's a natural part of life. But these were like,
13:04
Speaker 1: you know, twenty some things, thirty some things, and a
13:06
Speaker 1: lot of them were like in high positions and government.
13:08
Speaker 1: They did not want to take their turn at the
13:11
Speaker 1: podium and have to, you know, mumble their way through
13:14
Speaker 1: a speech that was not gonna fly. And one of
13:17
Speaker 1: the big questions here then becomes what is the provenance
13:22
Speaker 1: of these teeth? Because, as we said, tooth decay was rampant.
13:25
Speaker 1: So you know, you have to find the right donor
13:29
Speaker 1: in order to provide the teeth. Otherwise you have to
13:31
Speaker 1: find someone who is either um impoverished and wants to
13:37
Speaker 1: make some money to sell their teeth, to sell their
13:39
Speaker 1: own teeth. It's like that expression, I'd sell my eye
13:42
Speaker 1: teeth or I'd give my eye teeth for a bite
13:44
Speaker 1: of that candy. What's an eye tooth? Yeah, I don't know,
13:47
Speaker 1: ben Casey. Is it a canine? I do not know teeth?
13:51
Speaker 1: Is it like a wisdom tooth? I feel like it's
13:52
Speaker 1: sort of like an imaginary too. Is it just one
13:54
Speaker 1: of your front teeth? Let's just go let's go with
13:56
Speaker 1: that canine? Perhaps, Yeah, I was guessing Canada, but right
14:00
Speaker 1: in and let us know. Although we could just search
14:03
Speaker 1: the internet, well, we'd like to hear your takes. So
14:06
Speaker 1: I guess we're getting at is you have to be
14:07
Speaker 1: in a pretty uh sticky situation to want to sell
14:11
Speaker 1: your teeth. So while that may have happened here and there,
14:13
Speaker 1: that certainly was not a sustainable source of teeth. Ben.
14:17
Speaker 1: This is where your favorite types from this period come
14:19
Speaker 1: into play. The resurrection man. Oh, yes, it is true,
14:23
Speaker 1: It is true, Tonal, because there was you see, one
14:28
Speaker 1: very particular demographic that didn't willingly donate their teeth, but
14:33
Speaker 1: were left in a position where they could not object
14:36
Speaker 1: to their teeth being taken. And those were soldiers and criminals,
14:43
Speaker 1: because after their spirit had departed the mortal plane, especially
14:48
Speaker 1: in the case of criminals, their bodies would be used
14:51
Speaker 1: by grave robbers, by resurrection men supplied on the medical
14:54
Speaker 1: black market for people studying anatomy. But they found this
14:59
Speaker 1: other set and dairy market, which was to take their
15:03
Speaker 1: teeth and sell them to high flute and dentists. And
15:06
Speaker 1: what are you looking for, Ben, If you're one of
15:08
Speaker 1: these resurrection men, you want the freshest of the fresh.
15:11
Speaker 1: You don't want to go actually digging in graves if
15:13
Speaker 1: you can help it, I mean, sure you you will
15:15
Speaker 1: if you need to. But um, what would be a
15:18
Speaker 1: pretty amazing source for these teeth, these precious little bone nuggets,
15:24
Speaker 1: would be a recent blood bath of a battle, right,
15:29
Speaker 1: such as the Battle of Waterloo. That's where we're going totally.
15:33
Speaker 1: We're there. Yeah, we're there at the Battle of Waterloo.
15:37
Speaker 1: It's gross here. There's there's bodies everywhere. What was it
15:41
Speaker 1: like fifty dead after Napoleon's forces were defeated by the English? Yep,
15:48
Speaker 1: this human tragedy. The scene is if you imagine hazy,
15:54
Speaker 1: the smell of carrion is in the air. We're here, ben,
15:57
Speaker 1: where we've traveled here? Yeah, we're here, we are And
16:00
Speaker 1: if you look in the distance there as if you're
16:04
Speaker 1: here with us, you can see some groups of people
16:07
Speaker 1: walking from corpse to corpse, squatting down with an early
16:13
Speaker 1: version of pliers and wrestling, wriggling, wrenching teeth out of
16:19
Speaker 1: the mouths of these corpses. You see, this is a
16:24
Speaker 1: brand new business. And we say they're taking teeth, They're
16:27
Speaker 1: taking a lot of teeth. Well, here's my question, man,
16:30
Speaker 1: do you think this was like parallel thinking? Was this
16:33
Speaker 1: just like holy cow, this is a gold mine of
16:36
Speaker 1: teeth because this new profession or this you know, uh
16:40
Speaker 1: new trade had Wasn't that new. It had have been
16:42
Speaker 1: around for a while. The use of human teeth I
16:44
Speaker 1: think dates as far back as uh the bcs bcs right,
16:49
Speaker 1: uh seven b c. Etruscans in northern Italy made dentures
16:53
Speaker 1: out of human teeth. So, you know, while this wasn't
16:55
Speaker 1: like exactly a new idea, it seems like it was hot.
16:58
Speaker 1: It was a hot come out of and that was
17:01
Speaker 1: a relatively new ish development, like from the mid seventeen hundreds,
17:05
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah. And people, here's one of the big
17:07
Speaker 1: controversies that we're still trying to suss out today. Nowadays,
17:12
Speaker 1: we refer to this particular genre of denture as Waterloo teeth,
17:18
Speaker 1: based again on that tremendous battle right, But according to
17:23
Speaker 1: some researchers like Rachel Bearsto, nobody really called them that
17:29
Speaker 1: at the time, and this leads her to speculate the
17:34
Speaker 1: people may not have had any idea where these teeth
17:38
Speaker 1: were coming from. Do you think this would have affected
17:40
Speaker 1: the market since all of a sudden, I wouldn't call
17:42
Speaker 1: it a glut. I guess that demand was so high,
17:44
Speaker 1: but this certainly fifty human specimens, you know, that would
17:50
Speaker 1: probably have maybe caused a fluctuation in the price. Maybe
17:54
Speaker 1: I could see it definitely causing a fluctuation in the price.
17:58
Speaker 1: Maybe it would have gone down. We don't know how much,
18:01
Speaker 1: you know it would make this level of dental work
18:04
Speaker 1: available to say, someone who was just in the landowning
18:08
Speaker 1: class but not wealthy. That answer, we don't know. However,
18:13
Speaker 1: we do have a list from the British Dental Association's
18:18
Speaker 1: museum in London. It's almost a menu. It's a tooth menu,
18:22
Speaker 1: it's it's a mouth menu. It's listing American pivot teeth
18:29
Speaker 1: and natural teeth and you can order them in an
18:31
Speaker 1: upper set of six, a lower set of six can
18:35
Speaker 1: order odd centrals, laterals and canines. What are American pivot teeth?
18:39
Speaker 1: What is that referring to? We know that the definition
18:41
Speaker 1: of a pivot tooth is an artificial crown attached to
18:45
Speaker 1: the root of a tooth. Okay, so what we're talking
18:47
Speaker 1: about would be more than natural teeth, right right, We're
18:49
Speaker 1: talking about the natural teeth, and we have a chart
18:51
Speaker 1: for that too, from a William Harnet's dental depot. And
18:54
Speaker 1: a lot of this is coming from a fantastic article
18:57
Speaker 1: with amazing visuals on the BBC called the cher is
19:00
Speaker 1: made from the teeth of dead soldiers at Waterloo by
19:03
Speaker 1: Paul Curly. And this dental depot has a price list
19:08
Speaker 1: from eighteen fifty one that shows the breakdown of how
19:12
Speaker 1: much dentists pay wholesale for these different amounts of teeth.
19:17
Speaker 1: I want to be transparent here. I have not become
19:21
Speaker 1: an expert in British currency from the nineteenth century, so
19:26
Speaker 1: there are abbreviations that I don't understand. Yeah, Like, for example,
19:30
Speaker 1: it says you can get them in this natural teeth
19:32
Speaker 1: by the way, you can get them in sets of
19:33
Speaker 1: six uppers, and it says from and then it says
19:36
Speaker 1: to slash six to five slash and nothing. So hey
19:41
Speaker 1: right in. If you're any historical dental historians out there,
19:46
Speaker 1: it's redundant. But you know what I'm saying. Let us know.
19:49
Speaker 1: My favorite thing though, it is has a whole list
19:50
Speaker 1: and then it says it sets of six uppers from
19:53
Speaker 1: and then that, and then it says ditto six lowers,
19:55
Speaker 1: and then we've got by cus beds upper. It says
19:58
Speaker 1: nine d each. I'm not or what the D stands
20:00
Speaker 1: for ditto lower sixty. Then you got the the animal
20:05
Speaker 1: type teeth which I love because it offers seahorse teeth. Yeah,
20:10
Speaker 1: wouldn't those be tiny? And then it all offers straight
20:14
Speaker 1: seahorse teeth, which for some reason reminds me of mix
20:17
Speaker 1: tapes where something is straight fire. Well, if it's the
20:20
Speaker 1: straight seahorse teeth, that means it's uncut, it's unkind direct,
20:24
Speaker 1: it's the director of your mouth. With seahorse teeth. You
20:27
Speaker 1: also get see how tusk. I presume that means that
20:30
Speaker 1: the dentists would be doing the carving of the tusk themselves,
20:34
Speaker 1: unless some people just really wanted not early tusk, which
20:38
Speaker 1: you know is not out of the realm of possibility,
20:40
Speaker 1: especially nowadays with all these like grilled pieces and stuff.
20:43
Speaker 1: You ever seen any of those, Oh yeah, the vampire
20:46
Speaker 1: teeth with the things ye wild. I have an aversion
20:49
Speaker 1: to touching metal, as you know, so I the thought
20:51
Speaker 1: of having that in my mouth fills me with dread. Well,
20:54
Speaker 1: here's the thing for me, it's like you you're gonna
20:55
Speaker 1: pay fifty dollars to look like a meth head. It's like,
20:58
Speaker 1: I don't understand that logic. You know, it's from a difference.
21:02
Speaker 1: It just looks like your teeth are jacked. Up. That's true.
21:04
Speaker 1: That's true. Um. But you know, if it makes people
21:07
Speaker 1: happy and they're not hurting anyone, I'm sure that their dentists,
21:11
Speaker 1: their jeweler isn't complaining. Who do you think puts those?
21:14
Speaker 1: Do you think it's a jeweler? Do you think it's
21:16
Speaker 1: a dentist. It's just funny. The reason I bring it
21:18
Speaker 1: up is because I've I discovered this. There's a famous
21:21
Speaker 1: jeweler who in Dallas who does chains and stuff like
21:25
Speaker 1: he does it for like little YACHTI and like all
21:26
Speaker 1: the lils, you know, And he also does grill pieces
21:29
Speaker 1: and he I think they're faults, like they fit on
21:32
Speaker 1: top of your regular teeth, so it's not like they're
21:34
Speaker 1: actually ripping your teeth out and replacing them with diamond chunks.
21:37
Speaker 1: But it's still it gives me the creeps too, Ben,
21:40
Speaker 1: I'm with you on them. So I want to go
21:47
Speaker 1: back to your earlier question about whether the market became glutted.
21:54
Speaker 1: It's strange because two things occur in the mid eighteen hundreds.
21:59
Speaker 1: There is the thirty two Anatomy Act, which clamps down
22:05
Speaker 1: on the trade and dead human beings and dead human
22:08
Speaker 1: being part because it was a wild West. Up to
22:09
Speaker 1: this point, it was pretty weird. They would just go
22:12
Speaker 1: on this battlefield and just rip out the teeth of
22:15
Speaker 1: the new, the dearly departed, the recently dearly departing. And
22:19
Speaker 1: at the same time there were some new things emerging
22:22
Speaker 1: that could take the place of real teeth. And that's
22:25
Speaker 1: where we start to see all these straight sea horse teeth.
22:29
Speaker 1: I can't not see it that way. That sounds like
22:31
Speaker 1: a really great compliment. You talked about someone's mixtape. You say, man,
22:34
Speaker 1: that was straight teeth. That's a great idea. We should
22:37
Speaker 1: make it a catchphrase. I think we should. I think
22:39
Speaker 1: we just did. I think we did. Let's tell o
22:43
Speaker 1: power mad, but you know, let's be street sea horse
22:45
Speaker 1: teeth about it. Yeah, I like it. It feels good.
22:48
Speaker 1: Some other things happened to like what there were some
22:50
Speaker 1: developments in dental technology and required licensing of dentist because
22:55
Speaker 1: remember we were talking about how like I think that
22:57
Speaker 1: researcher that you mentioned earlier, Ben, what was her name,
23:00
Speaker 1: Rachel Barstow. She is quoted in saying that during this time,
23:04
Speaker 1: everyone dabbled in dentistry, meaning that it was not necessarily
23:08
Speaker 1: a codified profession. Yet at that point and so that's
23:12
Speaker 1: something that happened right around the time of that Anatomy Act.
23:16
Speaker 1: There were also some other developments technologically speaking that may
23:19
Speaker 1: have rendered this question of, you know, human teeth for
23:23
Speaker 1: the middle class a little bit mood. Although we probably
23:25
Speaker 1: had a good fifteen years when the products of those
23:29
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dead souls probably made the round, that seems
23:33
Speaker 1: like a lot long enough time for those to get
23:35
Speaker 1: some use, wouldn't you say? Yeah, I would say, because
23:37
Speaker 1: at the time. Look, someone invented the first porcelain dentures
23:41
Speaker 1: in way back in seventeen seventy four, but they were terrible.
23:45
Speaker 1: They would chip, just like ivory. They sometimes look too
23:48
Speaker 1: white to be convincing. So these waterloo teeth or human
23:52
Speaker 1: teeth in general were just considered easier to eat with,
23:55
Speaker 1: way more comfortable. And that continued after eighteen until as
24:01
Speaker 1: we're about to explore, now, these new technological inventions hit
24:06
Speaker 1: the market. That's right by the eighteen thirties. Um, there
24:10
Speaker 1: were some significant improvements made into those crappier porcelain teeth. Uh.
24:16
Speaker 1: And there was something called tube teeth that was developed
24:20
Speaker 1: by a jeweler named Claudius ash Um. And then again
24:25
Speaker 1: from this BBC article that I recommend highly checking out.
24:28
Speaker 1: There's some amazing pictures of all of the stuff that
24:30
Speaker 1: we're talking about. The American innovators of industry, Charles and
24:34
Speaker 1: Nelson Goodyear of of the Goodyear Blimp fame Um developed
24:38
Speaker 1: something called it was a compound using something called India
24:41
Speaker 1: rubber that is very much in line I think with
24:44
Speaker 1: what is used today. That your grandpapa might have the
24:47
Speaker 1: pink kind of soft rubbery bass that looks very much
24:50
Speaker 1: like gums that make up the part of the denthuer
24:53
Speaker 1: that the teeth are actually embedded in. And it was
24:55
Speaker 1: easy to mass produce and it fits the bill in
24:57
Speaker 1: terms of the color. Yeah, called vulcanite sometimes it was
25:00
Speaker 1: the discovery of the vulcanization of rubber. That's the process
25:04
Speaker 1: that allows rubber to withstand heat and cold. And this
25:08
Speaker 1: stuff eventually went on to be used in so many
25:10
Speaker 1: other things. Tires obviously it's Goodyear, pencil raisers, life jackets, balls,
25:15
Speaker 1: gloves and more and more stuff. But yeah, it played
25:18
Speaker 1: a huge role in the dentist industry. Mentioned tube teeth
25:23
Speaker 1: with Claudius ash Uh. He mounted his on something similar
25:28
Speaker 1: to a grill. It was eighteen carrot gold plate and
25:31
Speaker 1: had gold springs and swivels. And this is where we
25:34
Speaker 1: get to a part that really bothers me, man because
25:37
Speaker 1: as even though they're making these amazing breakthroughs in the
25:42
Speaker 1: appearance of the teeth, the appearance of the gums, the
25:45
Speaker 1: placing of it, and so on, they still have the
25:48
Speaker 1: steampunk esque metal springs that that connect the top. Disgusting.
25:57
Speaker 1: It looks like something off of Hell Raiser, like rub
26:00
Speaker 1: you raw on the inside of your mouth. I was
26:02
Speaker 1: thinking about that too, like cutting the inside of your cheeks.
26:06
Speaker 1: But the thing is these would get fitted for people
26:10
Speaker 1: and then refitted after they had spent some time with them.
26:12
Speaker 1: You would go to a jeweler jeweler and they would
26:14
Speaker 1: fix up your They would fix your springs, because that's
26:17
Speaker 1: the thing. Then that researcher you mentioned earlier, Rachel Barrister. Barrister, Yeah,
26:23
Speaker 1: she had a great quote saying that in around this time,
26:26
Speaker 1: everyone dabbled in dentistry because there were no like laws
26:30
Speaker 1: on the books or regulations governing the profession or any
26:33
Speaker 1: kind of certifications That would not come for many, many
26:37
Speaker 1: more years, which is crazy to me, until like almost
26:39
Speaker 1: nine I think around eighteen seventy nine. That was when
26:43
Speaker 1: the first register was right. But they they didn't even
26:47
Speaker 1: have a dental legislation passed until eighteen seventy eight. So
26:51
Speaker 1: that's why you would go to a jeweler rather than
26:54
Speaker 1: a specialized dentist, unless you had a dentist who happened
26:56
Speaker 1: to just be somehow good and not just so Johnny
27:00
Speaker 1: toothpick off the street, who wants to mess with stranger's
27:04
Speaker 1: teeth for money? Yes, j yeah, old Johnny toothpick. And
27:08
Speaker 1: as we know, this field continues to evolve in the
27:13
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Acrylic starts placing volcan a fluoride makes its
27:18
Speaker 1: way into toothpaste. But the big question, which we still
27:24
Speaker 1: still do not know the answer to, is how many
27:27
Speaker 1: of these people knew where they were getting these teeth.
27:33
Speaker 1: I mean, what would you have done? Wait, like, if
27:36
Speaker 1: you if you had some Really you've been eating, you've
27:38
Speaker 1: been living a sugary sweet life. You play some acids
27:43
Speaker 1: and skittles and Marza pan or something you love. I
27:49
Speaker 1: like that. That's the stuff with the almond in it
27:51
Speaker 1: and paste. It's amazing. So uh it makes little trinkets
27:54
Speaker 1: out of it too. You can mold it into little
27:56
Speaker 1: fruits and little little mushrooms. We should get some marzipan
28:01
Speaker 1: after this, we should I should be like, you know what,
28:03
Speaker 1: the there's like a French bakery downstairs that has mars.
28:07
Speaker 1: It's a good place. Um. What would I do if
28:10
Speaker 1: would you if you were on if you were on
28:13
Speaker 1: the dental fence and you had lost several teeth at
28:17
Speaker 1: this time, would you be comfortable putting the teeth of
28:20
Speaker 1: another person in your mouth, taking a tooth stoner? I
28:23
Speaker 1: would much prefer the teeth of a freshly deceased, you know,
28:27
Speaker 1: strapping young lad, then that of some sort of hardened
28:30
Speaker 1: criminal hanging from the noose, rotting in the sun. Yeah, yeah,
28:35
Speaker 1: I see what you SAIDs how I feel about that? Yeah,
28:38
Speaker 1: I'm I'm on the same page as the resurrection man.
28:40
Speaker 1: I want mine to be fresh. There's another thing that
28:43
Speaker 1: happens in let's see before the legislation stuff passes In
28:48
Speaker 1: the UK. Supplies of these human teeth are not just
28:52
Speaker 1: limited to Waterloo and criminals. They increased during the crimean
28:56
Speaker 1: War of the eighteen fifties, and in eighteen sixty five,
29:00
Speaker 1: outfit named the Paul Maull Gazette reported that some London
29:05
Speaker 1: dentists still refused to switch the porcelain. They said, no,
29:09
Speaker 1: natural teeth, that's my business. Human teeth. Get me more teeth.
29:13
Speaker 1: And I know Waterloo is over, but we have a
29:16
Speaker 1: whole new source on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
29:19
Speaker 1: You see, the Civil War occurred. Yeah, and now there's
29:24
Speaker 1: an entirely new source of teeth for what we're called
29:28
Speaker 1: the tooth robbers. So like evil tooth fairies, mercenary tooth fairies.
29:33
Speaker 1: Love that image, Ben, I love that image. Now here's
29:36
Speaker 1: a question for you. Sure can you imagine if like
29:39
Speaker 1: organ transplants were possible in those days, what an absolute
29:43
Speaker 1: ship show those battlefield would have been, with people just
29:46
Speaker 1: pulling out guts left and right, throwing them in the coolers.
29:50
Speaker 1: You know, I shuddered. I think a lot of people
29:52
Speaker 1: would have died simply because the hygiene wasn't there, right,
29:55
Speaker 1: and we didn't really understand what makes uh because this
29:59
Speaker 1: stuff in this alternate reality of mine, organ transplants are possible,
30:02
Speaker 1: but people are still quite disgusting, right Well, they would
30:05
Speaker 1: also firstly, if we've learned anything, the first thing they
30:08
Speaker 1: would try to do is transplant organs from animals, which Uh,
30:14
Speaker 1: that's my that's my reaction to that. We're verging onto
30:17
Speaker 1: a different show that we do. But check out our
30:19
Speaker 1: episode and stuff they don't want you to know about
30:21
Speaker 1: the red market. The red market, it's a real thing
30:24
Speaker 1: in In the meantime, though, I've got to say all
30:27
Speaker 1: that we give dentists a tough time. I if you're
30:31
Speaker 1: listening and you're in the dental industry where you're a hygienist,
30:34
Speaker 1: or you're someone who just carves teeth from enamel, which
30:38
Speaker 1: is a job, yeah, or your a dds yourself, thank
30:42
Speaker 1: you so much, hugged dentists. Hugged dentists, thank them for
30:46
Speaker 1: not putting the teeth of a corpse in your mouth.
30:49
Speaker 1: That sounds like an ancient curse or something that may
30:54
Speaker 1: the teeth of the corps ever be in young mouth? Right,
30:57
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's some pox on your house kind of stuff. Really.
31:01
Speaker 1: And on that note, on that note, I like ending
31:05
Speaker 1: on dst and then and then a curse a pox
31:09
Speaker 1: on your mouth. So let us know what your experiences
31:14
Speaker 1: have been with dentists. Do you think dentistry gets a
31:17
Speaker 1: hard rap? Uh? Do you think people should be more
31:20
Speaker 1: appreciative of dentists? Would you sport the teeth of a
31:25
Speaker 1: corpse in your mouth on a day to day basis
31:27
Speaker 1: while you eat your hot pockets? Let us know. You
31:30
Speaker 1: can write to us a ridiculous at how stuff works
31:32
Speaker 1: dot com. You can hit us up on our Facebook group,
31:34
Speaker 1: which is the Ridiculous Historians on Facebook courtesy of our
31:38
Speaker 1: pal Mark Zuckerberg. We've got some thanks to throw out there.
31:41
Speaker 1: We do have some things to throw out there. Of course,
31:44
Speaker 1: Casey super producer, Casey pegram As always thank you, No,
31:49
Speaker 1: I want to thank you. I think this has been
31:52
Speaker 1: a pretty cool conversation. We found some neat catchphrases. That's
31:55
Speaker 1: straight seahorse teeth dog right right, And we also would
32:00
Speaker 1: who thank Alex Williams who composed our track which is
32:03
Speaker 1: straight sea horse teeth. Which is straight sea horse teeth, folks,
32:06
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this catchphrase because I think we're
32:10
Speaker 1: gonna We're gonna ride this one out. Is not the
32:12
Speaker 1: last you've heard of straight sea horse teeth, definitely not.
32:15
Speaker 1: We want to thank our research associates, Gabe Christophrosse Listen, Used,
32:19
Speaker 1: Jeff go and most importantly, we want to thank you
32:21
Speaker 1: folks out there in podcast land. Thanks for listening, and
32:24
Speaker 1: be sure to tune in next time when we talk
32:27
Speaker 1: about feral children and imperialism. It's gonna be a good
32:31
Speaker 1: old time. Roger Kipper, Oh boy, that guy was a jerk.
32:36
Speaker 1: Reill Phill