Discussion Post: The Stock-broker's Clerk
Oct. 2nd, 2016 08:01 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sherlock60This week, the canon story we’re looking at is The Stock-broker’s Clerk and the chosen topic is (brace yourselves ^^”) Victorian Dentistry.
A few facts:
ᨻ “During the Victorian period… men carried toothpicks and women carried chatelaines (decorative hooks) with toothpicks on them, and if you had the money you had your own set of scalers [“When you go to the dentist and the hygienist scrapes all that hard stuff off your teeth, that’s what scalers are used for”] to take to the dentist with you.” Queen Victoria’s scalers had mother-of-pearl handles and gilded crown ornamentation. [Scott Swank, DDS via Dear Doctor]
ᨻ Many of Victoria's subjects used toothbrushes made of boar's hair mounted on a bone handle. According to Victorian-era catalogues… children and people with gum disease were advised to forgo the boar's hair in favor of gentler brushes made with goat or badger hair. [Dear Doctor]
Victorian women… clean[ed] their teeth with toothbrushes made from boars hair or horse hair (horse hair was preferred because it was softer—mostly used by the wealthy). Although one could purchase toothpowders, they were usually made at home, as were mouth rinses. Salt, although rough on the gums, was used to clean teeth on occasion, but thought to be better used on men. Marseilles soap, a delicate soap made from olive oil, sea water and ash, which had been around for 500-600 years, and still available today, was used in the mouth 2-3 times a week. [History Undressed]
ᨻ The price of early dentures rang[ed] from between half a guinea to forty pounds, [so] only those from the upper ranks could afford [them]. Early false teeth were heavy and largely for show, incapable of allowing intelligible speech and seldom secure enough to permit chewing. Indeed, various social historians have claimed that the inadequacy of early dentures was one of the main reasons behind the Victorian upper class vogue for eating in one’s bedroom before dinner to insure against embarrassment at the table. [Julia Armfield]
ᨻ ...during the first half of the nineteenth century, the most popular and profitable breed of dentures available were those made from genuine second-hand teeth. They were called “Waterloo Teeth” because they were taken from the bodies of dead soldiers from that battle but the moniker... quickly became applicable to any set of teeth pilfered from the mouth of a dead soldier and continued in use throughout the Crimean and American Civil Wars.
ᨻ This fashion for “genuine” dentures… was… dogged by… “graverobber” connotations and it was consequently during the mid-nineteenth century that more sustainable and palatable styles of false teeth came to the fore. Claudius Ash… started manufacturing porcelain teeth mounted on gold plates… in the 1820s and ‘30s… with gold springs and wire to hold them in place and make them easier to talk and eat with. Ash & Sons went on to devise dental plates made of vulcanite and silver, as well as sickle-shaped metal insets to stabilise single false teeth, aluminium and gold mesh dental strengtheners and silicate cement for fillings…
...the manufacturing of false teeth… took off, with dentists’ advertisements from the British Library Evanion Collection showcasing the sudden diversity of materials and plates available – from platinum to 18 carat gold. But it was not until the early twentieth century that one could be certain not to find anyone smiling at you with a set of dead men’s teeth. [Julia Armfield]
ᨻ ...for centuries rich patients had gold fillings but amalgam was first used in Europe around 1820. [Tim Lambert]
Dental amalgam is a liquid mercury and metal alloy mixture… Low-copper amalgam commonly consists of mercury (50%), silver (~22–32% ), tin (~14%), copper (~8%) and other trace metals… In the 1800s, amalgam became the dental restorative material of choice due to its low cost, ease of application, strength, and durability. [Wikipedia]
ᨻ Sir John Tomes, [was] the first person to officially register himself as a 'dentist'. [The Royal College of Surgeons awarded him the Licence in Dental Surgery (LDS) first, so he then could act as an examiner for the initial batch of students. [BDA]]
Tomes [was] a true pioneer in all aspects of dental care - from plotting biology of the teeth to developing instruments and furniture. He… kept a register at the hospital of every case he treated and used these to analyse which teeth were most at risk of disease. Tomes developed a dental chair as well as many different instruments to deal with each tooth. [Milly Farrell and Jane Elliott]
Early in his career Tomes saw the need for official recognition of dentists as professionals but it was not until the mid 1850s that he could devote much attention this matter. After an official qualification and training was set up [in 1860], Tomes managed to obtain support for an Act of Parliament, which was passed in 1878, restricting the use of the word dentist to suitably qualified persons. [That is, unqualified people could still work as ‘dentists’, they just couldn’t call themselves that.]
To enforce the act, Tomes and other leading dentists formed the British Dental Association in 1880 and he was [their] first president. [BDA]
ᨻ ...before Tomes, things could be very painful. Extractions were by forceps or commonly [dental] keys, rather like a door key. When rotated it gripped the tooth tightly. This extracted the tooth - and usually gum and bone with it. Sometimes the jaws were also broken during an extraction by untrained people. [Stanley Gelbier and Jane Elliott]
ᨻ The arrival of affordable sugar from the West Indies led to soaring cases of tooth decay. In 1874 a tax on the commodity was repealed and for the first time the working classes could indulge their sweet tooth. [Adrian Lee]
ᨻ Drills were introduced in the Victorian era. They rotated slowly but as a method of removing the rotten part of a tooth at least it was an alternative to the dreaded extraction. [Adrian Lee]
In 1864, British dentist George Fellows Harrington invented a clockwork dental drill named Erado. [Wikipedia]
The first electric dental drill was patented in 1875 by American dentist George F. Green. [Wikipedia]
ᨻ The first anaesthetic in England was almost certainly given in London. On Saturday 19 December 1846, a dentist by the name of James Robinson extracted a tooth from a Miss Lonsdale using ether for the extraction.
...in 1847, John Snow became Britain's, and the world's, first true dedicated physician/anaesthetist. He created the first proper anaesthetic vaporizers and did extensive animal research. For the next 10 years he gave thousands of anaesthetics, first with ether and then with chloroform and other agents. Ether was difficult and unpleasant for induction, even in Snow's hands, and so in 1848 he switched to chloroform.
Joseph Clover was… important in popularizing the introduction of nitrous oxide to Britain. An American dentist T. W. Evans came to England on a demonstration tour in 1868. Clover observed Evans’ success and began to use nitrous oxide… By 1869, both Clover and a dentist called Alfred Coleman had independently devised masks and equipment to deliver gas nasally.
By the end of the 1860s, simple surgery and dentistry could be rendered relatively painless and less stressful for both operator and patient.
Local anaesthesia for dental work was reported by Sauvez, of L'Dentaire in Paris, in 1908, but it was not immediately popular in America or Britain. [Gary Enever]
ᨻ Lilian Lindsay... qualified [as a dentist] in 1895, the first woman to do so. [British Dental Association]
ᨻ The first dental x-ray was made in 1896. [Tim Lambert]
ᨻ ...in the early 20th century dentistry was still so expensive that some people chose to have all their teeth pulled to spare themselves a lifetime of pain. [Adrian Lee]
Some useful resources:
Dentistry and Teeth - cleaning From Mothers and Daughters, 1890, via The Dictionary of Victorian London.
National Museum of Dentistry National Museum of Dentistry, on Dear Doctor. A US museum but there is reference to ‘Queen Victoria's Personal Oral Hygiene Instruments’.
When blacksmiths were dentists By Jane Elliott, on the BBC website. Actually concentrates more on the period after blacksmiths were dentists.
Sir John Tomes: Victorian dental pioneer On the British Dental Association website.
John Tomes On Wikipedia.
Nothing but the tooth: The history of dentistry in Britain By Adrian Lee on the Express website.
Smiling with dead men’s teeth By Julia Armfield on the British Library website.
The history of dental anaesthesia By Gary Enever on Oxford Medicine Online.
A Brief History of Dentistry By Tim Lambert on localhistories.org
A Victorian Lady's Toilette By Kathleen Bittner-Roth on History Undressed.
Lilian Lindsay On the British Dental Association website.
The Black and White (and Gray) Truth of Victorian Teeth: a Steampunk Perspective By Cogpunk Steamscribe on WordPress.
British dental and other journals 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 1 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
Law and the dental profession 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 2 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
Dental equipment and materials 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 3 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
Clinical dentistry 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 4 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
Dental education, training and qualifications 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 5 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
General and specialist practice 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 6 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
War and the dental profession 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 7 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
A few facts:
ᨻ “During the Victorian period… men carried toothpicks and women carried chatelaines (decorative hooks) with toothpicks on them, and if you had the money you had your own set of scalers [“When you go to the dentist and the hygienist scrapes all that hard stuff off your teeth, that’s what scalers are used for”] to take to the dentist with you.” Queen Victoria’s scalers had mother-of-pearl handles and gilded crown ornamentation. [Scott Swank, DDS via Dear Doctor]
ᨻ Many of Victoria's subjects used toothbrushes made of boar's hair mounted on a bone handle. According to Victorian-era catalogues… children and people with gum disease were advised to forgo the boar's hair in favor of gentler brushes made with goat or badger hair. [Dear Doctor]
Victorian women… clean[ed] their teeth with toothbrushes made from boars hair or horse hair (horse hair was preferred because it was softer—mostly used by the wealthy). Although one could purchase toothpowders, they were usually made at home, as were mouth rinses. Salt, although rough on the gums, was used to clean teeth on occasion, but thought to be better used on men. Marseilles soap, a delicate soap made from olive oil, sea water and ash, which had been around for 500-600 years, and still available today, was used in the mouth 2-3 times a week. [History Undressed]
ᨻ The price of early dentures rang[ed] from between half a guinea to forty pounds, [so] only those from the upper ranks could afford [them]. Early false teeth were heavy and largely for show, incapable of allowing intelligible speech and seldom secure enough to permit chewing. Indeed, various social historians have claimed that the inadequacy of early dentures was one of the main reasons behind the Victorian upper class vogue for eating in one’s bedroom before dinner to insure against embarrassment at the table. [Julia Armfield]
ᨻ ...during the first half of the nineteenth century, the most popular and profitable breed of dentures available were those made from genuine second-hand teeth. They were called “Waterloo Teeth” because they were taken from the bodies of dead soldiers from that battle but the moniker... quickly became applicable to any set of teeth pilfered from the mouth of a dead soldier and continued in use throughout the Crimean and American Civil Wars.
ᨻ This fashion for “genuine” dentures… was… dogged by… “graverobber” connotations and it was consequently during the mid-nineteenth century that more sustainable and palatable styles of false teeth came to the fore. Claudius Ash… started manufacturing porcelain teeth mounted on gold plates… in the 1820s and ‘30s… with gold springs and wire to hold them in place and make them easier to talk and eat with. Ash & Sons went on to devise dental plates made of vulcanite and silver, as well as sickle-shaped metal insets to stabilise single false teeth, aluminium and gold mesh dental strengtheners and silicate cement for fillings…
...the manufacturing of false teeth… took off, with dentists’ advertisements from the British Library Evanion Collection showcasing the sudden diversity of materials and plates available – from platinum to 18 carat gold. But it was not until the early twentieth century that one could be certain not to find anyone smiling at you with a set of dead men’s teeth. [Julia Armfield]
ᨻ ...for centuries rich patients had gold fillings but amalgam was first used in Europe around 1820. [Tim Lambert]
Dental amalgam is a liquid mercury and metal alloy mixture… Low-copper amalgam commonly consists of mercury (50%), silver (~22–32% ), tin (~14%), copper (~8%) and other trace metals… In the 1800s, amalgam became the dental restorative material of choice due to its low cost, ease of application, strength, and durability. [Wikipedia]
ᨻ Sir John Tomes, [was] the first person to officially register himself as a 'dentist'. [The Royal College of Surgeons awarded him the Licence in Dental Surgery (LDS) first, so he then could act as an examiner for the initial batch of students. [BDA]]
Tomes [was] a true pioneer in all aspects of dental care - from plotting biology of the teeth to developing instruments and furniture. He… kept a register at the hospital of every case he treated and used these to analyse which teeth were most at risk of disease. Tomes developed a dental chair as well as many different instruments to deal with each tooth. [Milly Farrell and Jane Elliott]
Early in his career Tomes saw the need for official recognition of dentists as professionals but it was not until the mid 1850s that he could devote much attention this matter. After an official qualification and training was set up [in 1860], Tomes managed to obtain support for an Act of Parliament, which was passed in 1878, restricting the use of the word dentist to suitably qualified persons. [That is, unqualified people could still work as ‘dentists’, they just couldn’t call themselves that.]
To enforce the act, Tomes and other leading dentists formed the British Dental Association in 1880 and he was [their] first president. [BDA]
ᨻ ...before Tomes, things could be very painful. Extractions were by forceps or commonly [dental] keys, rather like a door key. When rotated it gripped the tooth tightly. This extracted the tooth - and usually gum and bone with it. Sometimes the jaws were also broken during an extraction by untrained people. [Stanley Gelbier and Jane Elliott]
ᨻ The arrival of affordable sugar from the West Indies led to soaring cases of tooth decay. In 1874 a tax on the commodity was repealed and for the first time the working classes could indulge their sweet tooth. [Adrian Lee]
ᨻ Drills were introduced in the Victorian era. They rotated slowly but as a method of removing the rotten part of a tooth at least it was an alternative to the dreaded extraction. [Adrian Lee]
In 1864, British dentist George Fellows Harrington invented a clockwork dental drill named Erado. [Wikipedia]
The first electric dental drill was patented in 1875 by American dentist George F. Green. [Wikipedia]
ᨻ The first anaesthetic in England was almost certainly given in London. On Saturday 19 December 1846, a dentist by the name of James Robinson extracted a tooth from a Miss Lonsdale using ether for the extraction.
...in 1847, John Snow became Britain's, and the world's, first true dedicated physician/anaesthetist. He created the first proper anaesthetic vaporizers and did extensive animal research. For the next 10 years he gave thousands of anaesthetics, first with ether and then with chloroform and other agents. Ether was difficult and unpleasant for induction, even in Snow's hands, and so in 1848 he switched to chloroform.
Joseph Clover was… important in popularizing the introduction of nitrous oxide to Britain. An American dentist T. W. Evans came to England on a demonstration tour in 1868. Clover observed Evans’ success and began to use nitrous oxide… By 1869, both Clover and a dentist called Alfred Coleman had independently devised masks and equipment to deliver gas nasally.
By the end of the 1860s, simple surgery and dentistry could be rendered relatively painless and less stressful for both operator and patient.
Local anaesthesia for dental work was reported by Sauvez, of L'Dentaire in Paris, in 1908, but it was not immediately popular in America or Britain. [Gary Enever]
ᨻ Lilian Lindsay... qualified [as a dentist] in 1895, the first woman to do so. [British Dental Association]
ᨻ The first dental x-ray was made in 1896. [Tim Lambert]
ᨻ ...in the early 20th century dentistry was still so expensive that some people chose to have all their teeth pulled to spare themselves a lifetime of pain. [Adrian Lee]
Some useful resources:
Dentistry and Teeth - cleaning From Mothers and Daughters, 1890, via The Dictionary of Victorian London.
National Museum of Dentistry National Museum of Dentistry, on Dear Doctor. A US museum but there is reference to ‘Queen Victoria's Personal Oral Hygiene Instruments’.
When blacksmiths were dentists By Jane Elliott, on the BBC website. Actually concentrates more on the period after blacksmiths were dentists.
Sir John Tomes: Victorian dental pioneer On the British Dental Association website.
John Tomes On Wikipedia.
Nothing but the tooth: The history of dentistry in Britain By Adrian Lee on the Express website.
Smiling with dead men’s teeth By Julia Armfield on the British Library website.
The history of dental anaesthesia By Gary Enever on Oxford Medicine Online.
A Brief History of Dentistry By Tim Lambert on localhistories.org
A Victorian Lady's Toilette By Kathleen Bittner-Roth on History Undressed.
Lilian Lindsay On the British Dental Association website.
The Black and White (and Gray) Truth of Victorian Teeth: a Steampunk Perspective By Cogpunk Steamscribe on WordPress.
British dental and other journals 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 1 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
Law and the dental profession 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 2 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
Dental equipment and materials 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 3 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
Clinical dentistry 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 4 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
Dental education, training and qualifications 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 5 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
General and specialist practice 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 6 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
War and the dental profession 125 years of developments in dentistry, 1880–2005 Part 7 by S Gelbier on the British Dental Journal.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
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no subject
Date: 2016-10-02 08:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-02 12:01 pm (UTC)Though it does appear that by the end of the Victorian period, going to the dentist would have been perfectly tolerable - not that different to going to the dentist in the 1970s perhaps.
no subject
Date: 2016-10-07 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-07 11:12 pm (UTC)But I have to say, I did find it pretty interesting finding out about the birth of modern dentistry.
no subject
Date: 2016-10-07 11:20 pm (UTC)So, in all this, did you find out anything about the odds of saving a left canine that's been knocked out in a waiting-room at Charing Cross? Or was it somewhere above and I missed it?
no subject
Date: 2016-10-07 11:35 pm (UTC)I gather you do have to get to an emergency dentist very quickly - I imagine Holmes in any case would have had far more pressing things to deal with ^^"
no subject
Date: 2016-10-02 04:32 pm (UTC)*Shudders*
no subject
Date: 2016-10-02 06:52 pm (UTC)And my reaction was similar to yours regarding 'dead men's teeth'. But thinking about it again, I suppose nowadays we do accept postmortem organ donations as normal. It seems to be the 'grave robber' aspect of it that put people off - that is, the teeth were being taken from fallen soldiers, obviously without permission.