Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1872-08-15
Farm, Garden, aud Household.
Curious Facts About Teeth

relation TO teeth III Ql1tercnt countries
In some parts of Sussex, England,
there is a superstition that if you put
on your right stocking, right shoe,
right trouser leg, before the left, you
will never have atoothache. To drink
out of skull taken from a graveyard,
to take tooth from such a skull, and
wear it around the neck, to apply the
tooth to your own living but aching
tooth, to pare your finger nails and
toe nails, and wrap the parings in a
paper-all are charms against the
toothache. fyou catch male rat in
trap, cut off one of his paws, and
wear it as II charm, you will "soon see
the effect provided right paw be
used for left tooth, and vice versa
When an aching tooth is extracted,
mix it with salt and burn it. In 9th
er parts of England there is a custom
of calling the toothache the "love
PAIN" for which thesuferer is not
entitled to any commiseration wheth-
er he or she fully assents to this may
perhaps be 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, plenty OF travelling for the
fortunate possessor. When a tooth is
drawn, if you can refrain from thrust
inc 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 efficiency Of VOL
YES teeth. ''They are very lucky
thing; for my two first ones did dye !;
the other bred his very i'll, and none
of We rest did, for had one for all the
rest"
There is reason to believe that the
Greeks and Romans knew something
about false teeth Martial, i'll one Of
his epigrams, said that That's teeth
were discolored, while Leucania' S were
white. Why? Because the former
wore her own teeth, where as the lat
Ter wore those of some other person.
One of the old Roman laws allowed
the good settings of false teeth. or the
gold with which they were bound, TO
be buried OF burned with the deceas-
ed. Dentistry was known in England
three centuries ago, Belgraves Mathe-
matical Journal, published in the time
Of Queen Elizabeth, tells us that, Sir
John Belgrave caused his teeth to be
all drawn down ont, and after had a
set Of ivory in agayne.' Ben. johnson,
in his Silent Woman, published in
1907, makes one of the characters say:
A most vile face! and yet she spend
same forty pounds year in mercun
and hogs bones. All her teeth were
made in the Blackfi1ar's!' An al
manac printed in 1900 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 selections to acquire is to
have your teeth deticient-two above
and two below. The woman who
would want the courag to have them
drawn would be as much despised as
young girl in China, with feet the
natural size. The japanese women
Gid their teeth, and those Of the In
dian paint them red. A custom pre-
walls among the Siamese to stain their
teeth with saple varnish, which they
renew annually. In the Sandwich
Islands, persons disirous Of going into
mourning, paint the lower part Of the
faces black, and knock out their front
teeth. No doubt, this causes a very
sincere kind of mourning for the time.
Some years ago all Germany was in
commOtion in relation to Il rumor that
a child had a golden-tooth, and every
one wanted to see it. The literati
were exercised over the phenomenon.
Philosophers and anatomists wrote
essays and large volumes on the pos
sibility of the event, and each ascrib,
ed the freak of nature to a different
cause. But, Somehow or other, not
one of them ever thought of examin-
lug the tooth. If they had they would
have found a shrewd imposter had
covered it with leaf gold, with view
to exhibit the child as a prodigy. The
tooth was subsequently examined, and
the trick of the Snowman discovered.
The latter disappeared, and the child
was sent to an orphan ASYLUM.