Bykerlads, you and I are talking about the same film footage of WWI.
The teeth were really awful weren’t they!.
It was common practice for a young woman’s wedding present from her parents to be total removal and full set of false teeth on the basis that
she would have no more trouble from them.
Although drastic it was perhaps the better of two evils.
An old belief was that you lost at least one tooth for every child,well Queen Victoria must have lost a few,but of course her diet would be so very much better than ordinary women’s.
Tooth abscesses were very common and a gum infection, pyorrhoea
due to infected teeth sockets was almost commonplace.
Imagine those men and lads with toothache etc never mind the Germans,shells and all!
My O H had a tooth abscess once and it went right down into his jaw and came out through his lower cheek. He had a mark there everafter.
Of course with him work came first and he ought to have done something about it before he set out on an international business trip.Ouch ,oh the pain he was in.
Perhaps the toothache gave our lads the impetus to go and bash the Boch,
well they would want to bash something,probably a wall with their head but there were no walls standing ,well not in Ypres!
Viktoria.