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When Dentist Sold Dentures Made with Corpse Teeth · Ridiculous History

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