Eric Sykes on Hand-me-down Dentures
In a tribute to the recently deceased comic genius, Eric Sykes – aged 89, stories of Sykes’s Lancashire-life as documented in his autobiography, are revisited.
Within Sykes’s autobiography are references to old school or wartime oral health practices, which included recycled dentures. Sykes states in his book that after having a tooth extracted, he was given a toffee by his dentist. He also recalls the plastic smiles of grown-ups with hand-me-down false teeth.
During the battle of Waterloo, people stole the teeth of dead soldiers to sell to dentists. Teeth taken from soldiers during the American Civil War were shipped to Europe for denture-creation. Former American President, George Washington himself, had a set of bone and gold dentures with springs to replace all of his missing teeth bar one. The discovery of materials for use in dentistry has evolved dentures into the acrylic and more flexible ones we are familiar with today.
Eric Sykes’s memories are vivid for his generation, but gradually replaced by modern comforts afforded to us by the conscientiousness of dentists, striving to improve treatments and patient care. Although poverty still exists today as it has in previous times, dentists across the globe are involved in dentistry initiatives to educate many about improving their oral health. Nowadays there are a number of new dental treatments available for preventing disease.
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