Victorian Dentist remove all teeth for false teeth upon marriage to save money in the future?

Hooa

Hooa

Hooa

Associate
Joined
29 Aug 2009
Posts
374
Arggghhhhh!!! Me and my younger brother were drinking and I don't know how but he came out with the title above and claimed he saw it on a documentary at about 3am 4 days ago!

Pretty much he is saying that in Victorian times it was very common for the man to pay the Dentist to remove all the woman's perfectly normal teeth and replace them with false teeth (dead peoples teeth) upon marriage (as a gift to the women?!?!) to save money in the future when their real teeth would keep going wrong over time!?

Now we nearly got into a heated argument over it as I just think it is completely ridiculous but he is like they did loads of stupid things back then, now I have tried googleing it and can not find anything!

Can anybody shed some light as to what he is on about?

Thanks a million :)
 
I imagine it's perfectly true seeing as when my grandmother was in her 20s, her dentist told her if she had all her teeth removed and dentures put in then she'd save money and wouldn't have any problems in the future, and sure enough that's what he did. A lot of people did it. It was because the dentists got paid for something like each tooth removed etc. so made far more money if they just told people this, and people weren't educated enough about their teeth to know otherwise.
 
No sure about victorian times, but removal of all teeth and provision of dentures was very popular when the NHS was first established and throughout the early 50's. Due to dentists then ribbing the system the various governments since have basically limited and reduced fees for both extractions and dentures since. Correspondingly they were (and in NI and Scotland, they remain) two of the worst 'paid' treatments that can be done.
System in England has changed into banding, so I can't comment fully on how many extractions are classed as band 2, rather than band 1.

I find it a bit crazy that a dentist gets paid around £14 to extract a tooth, which is basically a surgical procedure, removing something permanently, and the complications that come with such an event. Two teeth are around £20, and then 3 or 4 (no difference in price, you can take 3 or 4 for the same fee) around £25. Utter madness that so little value is placed on peoples teeth. No encouragement to look after them, have a healthy diet, avoid sugars and clean them when the cost of removal is so cheap.

So certainly in the 50's and to a lesser degree sicne many people have all their teeth removed and dentures placed. As for victorian times, that might have been the case, but there didn't exist the types of base to which the teeth are now stuck (acrylic resins), wood was used, vulcanite was used, teeth could be from children or dead people, often from children, they would be paid to sit and have their front teeth out at age 12-13, so sosmone could have a nice young set. Disgraceful really, but that was life then.
 
Wow..... You really do learn something new every day! Thanks for the really detailed responses it's much appreciated. Makes me wonder why something so crazy was never mentioned at School! Much more mind blowing imo...So did the men do this to themselves too..? Or was their opinion on the cost saving a bit different when it came to themselves :p

I just can't understand why they never just removed the odd teeth that become bad, like I swear I hear about even today some old people/poor people do that..so why not then! Oh yeah education but still... Just seems so extreme!

Guess I got some apologising to do :eek: :o
 
My absolutely loopy Gran when in her 40's asked the dentist to take out all her teeth because she claimed she bit her tongue whilst she slept! :eek:

She's in her 90's now.

It sounds perfectly plausible.
 
in know an american guy who whilst in the army told the army dentist to just take out all of his teeth out lol

acording to him it saved him a lot of money in the long run because eventually they would need taking out anyway and army dentist is free
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom