Waterloo teeth. When dentures began.
October 16th 2006 09:28
Hanks as Crueso
Civilization is congruent with dental care. During his incarceration on island remote, Tom Hanks in Castaway has a dental problem. The pain of it causes him to try to hammer the offending tooth out of his head and in the process he renders himself unconscious. The movie leaves this troubling issue there and when we next see Hanks he has become Robinson Crueso in svelte frame spearing the fish lean as that trout in Under Milkwood.
In the Western land we take dental care for granted. The children of the baby boomers do not have cares, or fillings or x-rays full of fillings. Their teeth are perfect and they have orthodontists who are prepared at any age of the victim to reposition the teeth with the slow inquisition rack of braces.
George's jaw bones
False teeth were not in vogue until the 18th Century. We still have a set of George Washington’s teeth in a museum. The look so grotesquely large that this set would have fitted Pharlap.
Potential Donors
The Battle of Waterloo was a boon for the false teeth industry because now the teeth were real teeth. The porcelain teeth of the 18th Century had been brittle and broke too easily. After that fatal battle that claimed the lives of 50,000 men, 52 barrels of Waterloo Teeth went to the United Kingdom. For many years it was quite the fashion to sport a set of Waterloo teeth, oblivious to the fact that these have previously graced the mouth of some unfortunate soldier.
Waterloo teeth were still being sold for a fortune when Waterloo teeth would have long run out, so popular was the branding. After 1840 the technology was catching up.
| 39 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
