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