Waterloo Teeth

The BDA Museum has several sets of 'Waterloo' teeth in its collection - some of these are teeth taken from dead soldiers after the Battle of Waterloo, which were made into dentures.

Replacement teeth were traditionally made from ivory (hippopotamus, walrus or elephant).

However such teeth did not always look natural and deteriorated more quickly than real teeth. If you wanted a really nice set of dentures these were made with an ivory base and then set with real human teeth.

These were expensive as it could take six weeks to make a complete set. They have subsequently become known as 'Waterloo teeth', as some were scavenged from dead soldiers on battlefields.