You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set

[steepholm]

This is tangential to my genealogical quest, but I was struck by this reminiscence amongst my grandfather's papers:

She was a vegetarian from the date of our marriage. It was her own wish. She said that she had never felt better in her life, but she was still trying to get used to her artificial teeth, all her own having been extracted.

I'll probably have more to say about the vegetarianism at a later date, but I was certainly struck by the casual way he refers to his 25-year-old bride's toothlessness. Then I thought of Albert and Lil in The Wasteland, where it seems taken for granted that artificial teeth are going to be superior to natural ones. Finally (because I'm slow like that) I thought of my own mother, who was admittedly 38 when I was born - a good age for a mother in 1963 - but who promptly had her remaining teeth extracted, my uterine greediness for calcium having apparently reduced her molars to carious shells.

This is not the way of dentistry today. It represents the combination of two early-mid twentieth century predispositions that we have largely turned from: a) better artificial than natural (cf. formula vs. breast milk) and b) better out than in (cf. circumcision on medical grounds). The change is partly ideological, a preference for the natural having replaced our former shining faith in science and modernity; although it's too seldom acknowledged that the luxury to exercise that preference is itself largely the result of scientific and technical development (e.g. antibiotics that make it safe to keep what we might otherwise have extracted as a sensible precaution).

Anyway, I'd be interested in any reports of past attitudes to teeth (or other body parts) and the importance of keeping/discarding them. Are there significant international differences here? I'm thinking particularly of the American stereotype of the British as having bad teeth, although this seems to centre on cosmetic work rather than basic dental health.

Comments

[fjm.livejournal.com]

False teeth used to be a very common wedding present for brides. And the "pregnancy makes you lose your teeth" was a prevalent myth--my grandma had her teeth out with her second baby. More likely "having a baby when severely undernourished leads you to lose your teeth.

Teeth were a source of pain for earlier generations. Getting rid of them seemed like a good option. Now we know that losing teeth is actually very bad for us indeed: it's connected with gum disease and from there, heart attacks.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

It was also a common present for rural 21st birthday presents for Australian girls until preventative dentistry took over. Preventative dentistry was pushed in SE Australia from just under a century ago, but the stories of the complete set of teeth as presents were still going around when I was a kid (1960s). My father was a dentist, which is how I heard them all as a slow progression to women getting to keep their teeth. All the stories related to women, not men, which I didn't think was odd when I was six, but now I think is very odd.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

sheenaghpugh mentions below the expectation that pregnancy would lead to losing one's teeth later anyway, which might skew the occurrence toward women. But it's hard believe that there wasn't also a different aesthetic standard at work: gaps or black teeth might not be pretty in a man, but they'd be worse in a woman.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

Dad told me it was a 21st birthday present because it increased marriagability. I've not seen any data on it, however. All I have are family anecdotes. (Mind you, my father became a dentist because his favourite one-generation-up rello was a leader in preventative dentistry in the 1920s, so my family stories are handy.)

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

It's still a prevalent myth. Just the other day, my female coworkers were comparing the number of teeth they lost with each child. ("They say you lose a tooth with each child, right? And you have how many?" "Four...yep, you're right!")

I wanted to yell, "But you don't HAVE to lose your teeth!" but didn't want to start an argument during lunch.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

My mum used to talk about a boy she knew at university who had all his teeth removed so he could get false ones. This would have been in London, early 60s.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

My grandfather had all his teeth removed at 25 (in 1930) and had dentures all the rest of his life. He regretted raspberries, the seeds would get under the denture in an uncomfortable way.

I think there was a class thing too and a socialism thing -- these artificial teeth would be as good as anybody's.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Then again, raspberry seeds can also get stuck between teeth in an irritating way. So worth it, though.

[splanky.livejournal.com]

My Nanna had her teeth removed and false teeth for her 21st. This is in Australia... I think probably late '30s or early '40s. Apparently it was a common 21st birthday present then.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

For girls only, or for everybody?

[splanky.livejournal.com]

I'll see if parents know. None of my grandparents are around any longer to ask :(

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

I had no idea, though I did always contemplate as one of the horrors of old age that apparently you would be entirely toothless as my grandparents were, their dentures soaking in tumblers on their night-tables all night. It was part of my sense of the nighttime ritual when I slept over at their houses that when they took their teeth out, and their faces shrunk, it was irretrievably time for bed. The transformation was a little creepy, a sort of more intense or larger parallel to their taking their eye-glasses off. They became more elderly strangers who looked a little like my grandparents but looked more like the haggard old people you'd see on the streets.

So, yes, I thought losing your teeth was an inevitable part of the life cycle, part of middle age. I am glad it is not so.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I'm glad my LJ was the occasion of reassurance to you!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

My father was asked when he was dying whether he would like his dentures taken out. "Never!" he said.

[nwhyte]

My aunt, in her late 60s now, had 'em all out a few years ago. Granted, this is a bit older than the other cases being discussed here... My own dental history is sufficiently painful that I can see myself going the same way in my 60s too.

[sheenaghpugh]

As folk have said, it was a common wedding present for brides, perhaps because of the theory that you' lose them with pregnancy anyway. The idea of course was to save on vast dental bills, so it may come back soon... I've also heard of girls having their teeth replaced with gold ones.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

If they do come back, I'd like them to be multifunctional, like Swiss army knives.

[katherine langrish (from livejournal.com)]

An old lady in my husband's family, a cousin of my father in law, had had all her teeth extracted (in several goes) at the age of about 12. And she kept the same set of false teeth all her life. Her nephew, who is a dentist and who looked after her in old age, discovered this when she began to lose weight and complained her teeth weren't fitting very well and she couldn't chew. They had her name engraved on them...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Twelve does seem very young!

They had her name engraved on them.

I suppose that might have been useful in case of an ownership dispute?

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

"I have broken our false teeth." (This House of Brede)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Gosh, like a dental version of the Graeae?

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

The public confession of a nun who took the vows of collective possession perhaps a little *too* seriously.

I about bust a gut laughing for five minutes when I first read that line. I suspect, though cannot verify, that this anecdote may have been taken from real life.

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

And, of course, Nabokov's Pnin! (Whose model I took a dreadful class from, but I think he had teeth.)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

True! And, while we're at it, let us not forget Spike Milligan's contribution:

English Teeth, English Teeth!
Shining in the sun
A part of British heritage
Aye, each and every one.
English Teeth, Happy Teeth!
Always having fun
Clamping down on bits of fish
And sausages half done.
English Teeth! HEROES' Teeth!
Hear them click! and clack!
Let's sing a song of praise to them -
Three Cheers for the Brown Grey and Black.

From Ven Crane

[(Anonymous)]

Southern England, in the late sixties or so my father's sister had all her teeth out to be replaced by dentures. This caused quite a scandal in the family as hanging on to your teeth as long as you could was all the rage by then. My father, on the other hand had worn a partial set of dentures from an early age. The story behind this is a painful and unusual one. As a punishment for talking in class he had his face slammed into his desk by his woodwork teacher, smashing a number of his teeth. No action was taken against the teacher. Dad's teeth were given minimal repair at the time. I don't know what they looked like because there are no photos of him smiling -- I really don't recognise the solemn young man in those pictures. When he enlisted in the RAF during WWII he had his teeth sorted out -- irrc this was policy to minimise discomfort in unpressurised aircraft. That's when the damaged teeth were extracted and he got his first set of false ones. The first photograph in uniform shows the unfamiliar solemn young man. In the later ones he's smiling and I think "that's my Dad."

Re: From Ven Crane

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Woodwork teachers are like that. I remember once, when my filing technique was judged inadequate - actually, now I think of it, this was metalwork teacher, my woodwork teacher was a sweetie - he put the offending hand on the workbench and whacked a hammer down next to it, hard. I'm sure he meant it to land a minatory inch or two away, but in fact the metal was just touching the skin. Our eyes met, and I think we both saw in each other's expressions what another quarter inch to the right would have meant: for him, dismissal and eventual death under the arches; for me, an end to my dream of being a concert violinist.

I went back to my filing, and no more was said about it.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Angela Thirkell refers to women of the lower classes getting all their perfectly healthy teeth out as soon as they got that wicked socialistic free dental care. But gee, she might be a bit biased ...

I wonder if getting false teeth would seem like instant orthodontia? If you'd had horribly crooked or buck teeth all your life, a pleasant-looking set could make a big difference.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

That was probably a big motivator. With poor oral hygiene and lack of fluoride, teeth would decay and look ugly pretty quickly. Get 'em all out, and replace them with a shiny new modern set for your wedding!

Angela Thirkell really must have had a mad-on for the Labour Party. It's striking when you read her post-War austerity era novels. Yow.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Now you mention it, I recall just how many of my grandparental generation had bad (or no) natural teeth.

With implantation techniques developing rapidly, the whole replacement thing will change too.

As to removing other body parts......um.....for obvious reasons, but tonsils and adenoids would be one- my generation seemed to have suffered from removal almost as a given- 'tisn't so now. :o)

Appendixes (appendices?) is the dog that didn't bite as removal as a given never caught on even though appendicitis can be dangerous.