Civil war dentistry – A bit different to what we know and love
A full civil-war dental surgeon’s kit is currently on display at the Rosenburg Library Museum.
It is being displayed as the February treasure of the month.
Historians are of the opinion that the kit was owned by a Confederate soldier and contained more than 50 items, including dental elevators, picks and some rather grisly looking forceps, all contained in a handmade rosewood box.
It was manufactured in New York by John D. Chevalier, a dental supply house with a history stretching back to 1833.
Although it is unusual to have such a complete and well-preserved dental kit historians have discovered a surprising amount of information about mid 19th century dental care by examining artefacts discovered on the battlefields of the Civil War. It has allowed an unparalleled insight into the nations health in the 19th century and an idea of what it must have been like to live through such a uniquely traumatic period.
Oral hygiene was a low priority for most in the 19th Century with most only visiting the dentist to have painful teeth pulled. The start of the Civil War in 1861 left both sides scrambling for recruits and surprisingly, as well as being aged between 17-45, recruits were required to have a good standard of dental health.
The Confederate Army were more organised when it came to dentistry, hiring civilian dentists or paying recruits with dental training extra to act as hospital stewards. In contrast in the Union Army, no provisions for dentistry were made, so soldiers with dental health problems were commonly treated by surgeons, or if they were lucky, soldiers in the ranks with dental training who had kept their dental equipment with them.
Part of the requirement for joining up was a minimum number of teeth. In the Union Army six opposing upper and lower teeth were demanded whereas the Confederate’s required four opposing upper and lower teeth.
Predictably this led to problems as recruiters found men who had clearly removed their own teeth to avoid the draft. This became such an acute problem that army surgeons on both sides began to force recruits with obviously recent removals to join up regardless.
Although the Confederate dental services were the better organised, as the war progressed the Northern blockade began to tell and South of the Mason-Dixie Line, good dental supplies were hard to come by. The gold foil typically used for fillings in the period became so rare that other materials were utilised including mercury alloys, tin and even asbestos.
The dental surgeons kit in question was donated by Clark Hazlitt in 1949, Hazlitt had bought the kit from the estate of W.T. Armstrong. Armstrong (1864-1949) was an attorney and dean of the Galveston Bar was a board member of the library from 1905 to his death in 1949.
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