← Back to the front page

The Craziest Cures & Health Fads from History

Khalid Elhassan May 9, 2023 32 min

Health - Medieval monk drawing water from a well — Medieval monk drawing water from a well. Medievalists

Yanking Teeth as a Wedding Gift

Dentistry used to be excruciating. Jane Austen’s World

A visit to the dentist is an unwelcome experience to many, and teeth removal could be as unpleasant as, well… having teeth removed. But whatever one thinks of a dental visit today, it is nothing like the horrors that once passed for dentistry. For example, in nineteenth century England, dental health and hygiene standards were abysmal, and teeth frequently went bad in early adulthood. Whenever a tooth rotted, it required a visit to the neighborhood barber/ surgeon, who yanked it out with pliers, without anesthetic.

That led to some odd gift giving. To spare their kids the misery of having to go through that kind of pain several times in their lifetimes, some parents opted for “full teeth removal”, as a present to their offspring when they grew up. “Full teeth removal” meant exactly that: yank out all the teeth from the mouth, and replace them with dentures. Full teeth removal was considered such a fine gift, that it was frequently given to brides as a wedding present.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.