The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1872-05-16
curious Facts and Customs Relating TO
Teeth.

so'"e PaIts OF oussex, England, there is
superstition that if you put on your right
stocking, right shoe and right trouser leg,
before the left, you will never have a
toothache. To drink out of skull tax.
en- from graveyard to take tooth from
such skull, and wear it round the neck;
to apply tooth to your own living but
aching tooth to double nut into your
pocket; to pare your finger nails and toe.
nails, and wrap the parings in paper
all are charms against the toothache.-
W hen an aching tooth is extracted. mix
1t with salt and burn it. In other parts
OF England, there is custom of calling
the tooth ache the ''love pain" for which
the sufferer is not entitled to any com.
miseration whether he or she fully as.
sents to this may perhaps he doubted
Many other items of toothlore have no
connection with toothache. For instance;
II the teeth are set wide apart, there will
be good luck and plenty of travelling for
the fortunate possessor. When a tooth is
drawn, if you refroin from thrusting your
tongue into the cavity, the new tooth to
grow in its place will be lucky one
Lady Wentworth, in a letter written in
1913 to her son, Lord Stafford, spoke of
the efficacy Of wolves teeth set in gold =,
to assist children in cutting their teeth ::
"They are very lucky thing for my
two first ones did dye; the other bred his
very i'll, and none Of ye rest did, for l
had one for all the rest"
There is reason to believe that the
nd Rn, L l.
false teeth. Martial, in one of his
erigrams, said that That's teeth were dis
colored, while Leucania's were white
Why? Because the former wore her
own teeth, whereas the latter wore those
OF some other person. Oue Of the old
Roman laws allowed the gold setting of
false teeth, or the gold with which they
were bound, to be buried or burned with
the deceased. Dentistry was known in
England three centuries ago. Belgrave's
Mathematical Journal, published 10 the
time Of Queen Elizabeth, tells us that
"Sir John Belgraye caused his teeth to
be all drawn out, and after had set of
ivory in agayne." Ben Johnson, in his
"Silent Woman. published in 1907, makes
face and yet she spends me forty pounds
year in mercury and hogs bones. All
her teeth were made in the Blacktriars,'
An almanac printed in l709 mentions
one John Watts, who was the maker Of
artificial teeth in Racket Court, Fleet
street
Some barbarous nations draw the two
teeth in the middle Of the jaw. The sable
females of Africa 90 still further, and one
of the charms they are most solicitous to
acquire is two have four teeth deficient
two above and two below. The woman
who would want the courage to have them
drawn would be so much despised as a
young girl in China with feet of the ma
tural size. The japanese women gild
their teeth, and those of the Indies paint
them red A custom prevails among the
Siamese to stain their teeth with a sable
varnish, which they renew annually. In
the Sandwich Islands persons desirous of
going into mourning, paint the lower part
Of the face black, aud knock out their
front teeth. No doubt this causes a very
sincere kink of morning for the time.
GtiUe years dgO "do III
mmoton in relation to rumor that
child had a golden tooth. OF course it
was an eye tooth, and everyone wanted
TO see it, The Werdti were exercised
over the phenomenon Philosophers and
anatmoists wrote essays and large volumes
on the possibility of the event, and each
ascrbed the freak Of nature to different
cause. But, somewhow or other, not one
of them ever thought of examining the
tooth If they had, they would have
found that shrewd inposter had cover
ed it with gold leaf, with view to ex
hibit the child as prodigy. The tooth
was subsequently examined, and the trick
of tie Snowman discovered. The latter
disappeared, and the child was sent to an
orphan asylum.
In 1916 Lord Schwarterbury gave l6,
595 fraucs for tooth Of Isaac Newton.
which is now set in a ring and worn by
the eldest branch of that family.
During the days of the resurrectionists
or body snatchers, when grave yards were
subjected to pilage for supplying anato
mists with subjects for dissection, the
teeth from the dead bodies formed fire.
quent article of sale to the denists.-
Sometimes graves were open for the teeth
alone, as being small and easily concealed
articles.
Mr. Cooper, an English surgeon, re-
lates an instance Of a man feignlnS to
look out for burial place tor his wlie,
and thus obtained acess to the vault oi
meeting house, the trapdoor Of which he
unbolted. At night he let himself down
in the vault, and pocketed the front teeth
of the whole of the buried congregation
by which he cleared ESQ Mention is al
so made Of "a licensed sutler or cantiueer,
during the Peuiusular War, who drew
the teeth of those who had fallen in bat
tie, aud plundered their persons. With
- - .ooaods of these adventures he built