Page "Victorian era" Paragraph 82

Anaesthetics made painless dentistry possible.

At the same time the European diet grew a great deal sweeter as the use of sugar became more widespread.

As a result, more and more people were having teeth pulled and needed replacements.

This gave rise to " Waterloo Teeth ", which were real human teeth set into hand-carved chunks of ivory from hippopotamus or walrus jaws.

The teeth were obtained from executed criminals, victims of battlefields, from grave-robbers, and were even bought directly from the desperately impoverished.