Viclore

The information presented on this page is for historical and educational purposes only. It reflects past beliefs and practices and should not be interpreted as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional for any health concerns.

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A bag of mother’s teeth

I was reading extracts from a book called Magic in Modern London by Edward Lovett. The book deals with urban superstitions in London around the turn of the 20th century.

I’m told that when I was teething my Irish grandmother would give me a thimble of whisky on the gums to ease the pain. This got me thinking, was a bag of teeth a relatively common practice?

The history of teething

In modern times, teething is a relatively safe (albeit very uncomfortable) time in a child’s life. A study from 1991 examining teething as a historical cause of death points out that “Current medical observations suggest little more than restlessness, drooling, finger sucking, and appetite loss as results of this condition”¹. Turn the clocks back only a few hundred years, and it was a very different picture. Arbuthnot wrote in 1732 that “Above
one-tenth part of all children die in teething (some of them
from gangrene)”². This was very much a problem in the UK. In 1842, records on infant mortality within England and Wales cite that “teething was the registered cause of death in 4-8% of all infants who died in London under the age of 1 year and 7.3% of those between the ages of 1 to 3 years”³. A similar picture was seen in France, where about 1/2 of infant deaths in the 18th century were attributed to teething⁴.

Such high death rates surely contribute to the fervour in finding the best treatments for teething. In 1894, Dr M. Thrasher wrote “So deadly has teething become, that one third of the Human family die before the twenty deciduous teeth have fully appeared“⁵.

Unfortunately, record keeping historically tends not to have been very explorative. Records of Utah pioneers in the 19th century list teething as a common source of death. In 1865-1872 there was a massive increase in the number of cases, followed by a similarly dramatic decline over the following 8 years. The most common month within which teething was listed as a cause of death peaked in October, with the August-December season generally being a time of great increase. As the study by Gibbons and Hebdon points out, no-one at the time appears to have researched why these temporal events occurred⁶. It has been suggested that some of this may have stemmed from mislabelling of others causes of death, but unfortunately the real reason is likely lost to history. This contention around teething as a cause of death appears to have existed for a while, with George Armstrong writing in 1771 that:

Teething in the manner as was observed in convulsions is said to carry off a much greater number of children than it actually does, for almost all children that die whilst they are about teeth are said to die of teething⁷.

Discussions continued as to how deadly teething truly was. In 1884, W. C. Barrett presented his paper, “The Slaughter of the Innocents”. In this paper he discussed mortality rates associated with teething, writing:

“The child is teething”, is the vague explanation given to many an anxious mother by practitioners who are either incompetent to form a complete diagnosis, or too indolent and careless to seek for the hidden springs of disease… “Only teething”. To how many promising young existences in which were centered the hopes, the ambitions, the heart affections of a family circle, have these words sounded the knell. “Only teething”, and the fond parents looked with but little alarm upon the symptoms of the gravest character.⁸

By 1975, the assertion that childhood deaths were often misattributed to teething was in a way supported by The BMJ when they published that “there can be no excuse for attributing fever, fits, diarrhoea, bronchitis or rashes to teething”⁹.

In 1986, a tongue-in-cheek publication called “The teething virus” was published by Howard J. Bennett and D. Spencer Brudno. I believe that the abstract for the publication speaks for itself:

A prospective study was carried out on 500 teething infants which demonstrated that a new infectious agent, the human teething virus, is responsible for the febrile response that accompanies the eruption of deciduous teeth. Speculations are made concerning whether or not primary care physicians will began prescribing amoxicillin instead of Jack Daniel’s to treat teething infants and their parents¹⁰.

It’s hard to get a picture of teething as a cause of death within the modern UK, as it doesn’t seem to be recorded. Examining summaries of death records for 2022-2023 show no mentions of tooth or teething; these summaries do state that they exclude deaths in those under one year of age, which may contribute¹¹. Or perhaps it truly no longer is considered a cause of death. I am not a dentist, so I cannot comment.

Modern treatments now seem to have the goal of easing discomfort, rather than being a matter of life and death. Recommendations include giving the baby something cold to bite, providing the baby with paracetamol, or the application of numbing gels to the gums¹². That said the UK Government advice states that a variety of teething interventions, including gels and solutions, are generally not supported by clinical evidence¹³.

The historical folklore of teething

Prayer has long been a common tactic for treating teething. The Atharva Veda, a Hindu text written in around 1000BC, is said to include a prayer specific to safe teething¹⁴. References to teething pain have even been found as far back as in Sumerian clay tablets dated to around 3000BC¹⁵. These tablets liken dental pain to a worm eating through the tooth. This metaphor appears to have continued through time, with Greek mythology mentioning the teething worm as the “undercutter” or “woodcutter” in the 9th century BC¹⁶. Demeter, the goddess of mothers and children, was believed to protect children from the devastation of the worm.

In 117ad, it was proposed to smear the child’s gums with a hare’s brain. This method continued all the way into the 17th century¹⁷. In the sixth century AD, Aetios of Amida gave support to this idea. He said that the brains should be cooked and included in the food (and that if a hare’s brain couldn’t be found, lamb brains would do just fine)¹⁸. Interestingly he was also said to be a proponent of wearing bracelets and amulets to make teething easier. These amulets should contain root of colocynth (a poisonous vine), bramble root, or the tooth of a viper, and be positioned so as to hang over the stomach¹⁹. When fever and diarrhoea seem to be common side-effects of teething, it makes sense that the stomach would have been considered in early treatments of the problem.

Over the years, the use of (non brain-y) ointments began to emerge, as did the advice of letting the baby chew on hard substances. The hard substances being chewed on were often roots, and the ointments were often similarly made of natural resources²⁰.

Eventually, practices evolved from use of herbal remedies into something more hands-on. Bleeding of the gums (including through the use of leeches), cauterising the gums, and inducing blisters were all referenced in a book from 1675²¹. Around this time Ambroise Paré introduced the lancing of babies’ gums²². One proponent of this, Francois Mauriceau, proposed that it was much more effective than rubbing brains on the gums²³. He also denounced hanging a viper’s tooth around the babies neck.

Whilst lancing the gums remained the leading technique in the 18th and 19th centuries, the study points out that treatments were generally driven by the personal superstitions of the dentist²⁴. Although not used for teething, a German doctor in the mid 1800s was said to cure toothache by crushing ladybirds against the affected tooth²⁵. Swilling donkey milk in the mouth was also said to lead to a healthier mouth, with some areas of Germany taking it a step further in the 1920s by believing that you could cure toothache by kissing a donkey²⁶.

It has been noted that in the 19-20th century mercury salts, opiates, purgatives, and emetics were recommended, probably increasing the chance of death during teething due to dehydration²⁷. Leeches were again applied to the gums during this time period as a treatment.

In the UK there was said to be an intense rivalry between two confusingly similarly named brands in the early 19th century: Steedman’s Soothing Powders, and Stedman’s Teething Powders²⁸. Both products contained calomel, a purgative. In the 1840s we saw Fennings’ Children’s Cooling Powders use to help with teething. This product was found to contain 70% potassium chlorate (a hazardous substance which causes skin irritation and can in large doses affect the kidneys/nervous system²⁹) and 30% powdered liquorice³⁰. Taking a different approach, we next had Mrs Winslow’s Soothing Syrup. This was found to consist of alcohol and morphine³¹. In the 1860s, several Californian children were said to have died due to overdosing on the syrup (though this did nothing to quell it’s popularity). Morphine was finally removed from the UK formula in 1909, and the American in 1915³².

In the 1890s, lancing as a treatment was starting to fall out of fashion. A New York paediatrician, Abraham Jacobi, proclaimed in 1889 that “Lancing the gums has lost most of its charms”³³. However, it took time for the practice to fall off. In 1905 lancing was still a recommended treatment. An American home health book from the period states:

A very common cause of diseases of the stomach and bowels, and also of convulsions in children, is to be found in the hardening or induration of the gums at the time of teething, and this blunder of nature’s ought to be promptly remedied whenever the gums in infants at the time of the first dentition are found to be red, swollen, and hot to the touch, by the use of the lancet³⁴.

In the 20th century, folk treatments are not well discussed within the literature. Perhaps this is indicative of a trend towards seeing folk practices as primitive and barbaric [I wrote an essay which touches on this subject for my studies while I’ll post here later]. As it turns out, seeing the mention of teething charms in Magic in Modern London by Edward Lovett was perhaps a rarity. Attempts to dig further come back to Lovett. An article called “The Belief in Charms” was published in 1917 issue of the Folklore journal. Who should we find referenced here, but Lovett! The author of the article describes a show of folk charms which had been put together by Lovett.

Interestingly, here he is showing charms containing night-shade. This harks back to the Greek 6th century practice of wearing jewellery filled with the roots of the poisonous colocynth root to aid with teething.

Here we see mention of a tooth in a bag around the neck of an infant to help with “teething convulsions”.

Unfortunately, there don’t seem to have been many people collecting urban folklore at the time- my university lecturer puts Lovett as the main person within the UK. Because of this, there seems to be a gap in understanding of folk practices within the UK relating to teething in the 20th century. It seems logical that the academic shift from teething being a life-threatening event to an insignificant part of life would have contributed. Perhaps home remedies were more to do with easing pain than warding off death?

Modern times

In the early 2000s, a study was conducted to try and gather details of folk remedies within the urban black community. The study interviewed parents with children who were users of the Children’s Hospital of Michigan³⁵ in the USA. In general terms, the study found that older people were more likely to make use of folk remedies; education levels did not have a significant impact. The home-remedies for teething disclosed during this study were:

• Over the counter gels
• Teething objects
• Whiskey
• Penny
• Ice cubes/popsicles
• Egg
• Spices
• Having a puppy lick inside the child’s mouth

The study noted more uncommon remedies identified during the study were tied to beliefs that teething problems are caused by impurities in the body³⁶. Tying a penny on a string around the child’s neck causes impurities to be drawn out, and the penny to turn black. A raw egg placed in a sock would divert the impurities into the egg (the use of eggs to draw out sickness has strong roots in the Latin American community³⁷). Having a puppy lick inside the child’s mouth was also tied to this belief.

The study also highlighted harmful or unusual remedies disclosed during interviews. Whilst these weren’t broken down into what ailment they treat, the following harmful remedies were listed as treatments for fever, teething, and colic:

• Isopropyl alcohol
• Penny/buttons on strings around neck
• Egg
• Warm feet
• Tobacco smoke
• Potatoes or onions in socks
• Bicarbonate
• Asafetida
• Paregoric
• Puppy licks mouth
• Chew on chicken bone

Whilst this study was conducted using patients of a single hospital in the USA, due to migration it is likely that at least some of these beliefs would have ended up here in the UK.

One of the main ways that people share information nowadays is via the internet. Being female and in my 30s I exist in a perpetual cycle of targeted advertisements for products to help you get pregnant, products to help you stay pregnant, and products for small babies. One such item I’ve seen in this cycle is the “amber soothing necklace”. The general concept is that the chunk of amber will release succinic acid into the skin during wear, which is said to be a natural anti-inflammatory³⁸. However, a meta study disproves this. It has been found that not only is succinic acid not released by amber when placed on skin, but it is not even an anti-inflammatory substance at all³⁹. It also found the necklaces to generally be dangerous, and not just because of the high levels of bacteria they were found to harbour; many of the tested necklaces did not break under force, suggesting significant risk of strangulation⁴⁰. This unfortunately has proven to be very true, with an 18 month old dying via strangulation from such a necklace in 2022⁴¹. That said, many parents still swear by the necklaces⁴². In a Facebook discussion of amber bracelets, some posters propose putting the amber on an anklet to remove the risk of strangulation⁴³.

Continuing with the theme of teething necklaces, we have the Allspice Necklace. Allspice is said to release tannins which will help soften the gums and make it easier for the tooth to come out. The blog sharing this claim does say “I haven’t been able to find a whole lot of ‘science’ to prove this point,” but follows up by saying that it works for them and countless other parents⁴⁴. This blog also talks about how effective the amber necklace is. To create an allspice necklace, one should boil allspice berries and thread them onto a necklace. To the credit of the blog, the writer recommends using a magnetic breakaway clasp for improved safety.

Another modern proposal is to give your baby frozen breast milk cubes to chew on. Interestingly, this has been proposed in conjugation with herbal remedies- as chamomile tea is said to reduce stress, it is said that mothers can drink this tea before expressing milk to pass the benefits along to their babies⁴⁵.

That said, necklaces appear to remain the winner. A forum poster complains that their mother in law keeps putting a necklace with pearl buttons onto the baby to help with teething⁴⁶. A Facebook poster speaks of a silver dime on a necklace working for her family⁴⁷, whilst others speak generically of bead necklaces. Interestingly, in the same thread people propose that the amber necklaces used for teething could also be used to prevent nits in children, and therefore also on pets to prevent fleas.

Conclusions

Firstly, it is very sad that we have lost so much ancestral knowledge of folk remedies in general. This can maybe be attributed in part within the teething domain as being tied to a shift from teething being a life-threatening event to a mildly annoying one. This is not the case in generic folk medicine. It would have been nice if more people were like Edward Lovett and saw the point in preserving our cultural history.

In general, the use of necklaces seem to be an enduring folk treatment for toothing problems. As awareness of strangulation risks from these increases, perhaps their usage will decrease. Or perhaps despite a loss of connection to our folk roots commonly seen, something deep inside us will keep telling us that the correct way to ease teething is to put necklaces on our babies.

References

1. Teething as a Cause of Death: A Historical Review by Harry L. Gibbons and C. Kent Hebdon https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1003127/pdf/westjmed00100-0084.pdf ↩︎
2. Ibid ↩︎
3. Fever associated with teething by L Jaber, I J Cohen, A Mor https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1793425/pdf/archdisch00641-0087.pdf ↩︎
4. Say a prayer for the safe cutting of a child’s teeth: The folklore of teething by Sarah Malkiel, Michal Eisenstadt, Uri Pollak https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpc.13636 ↩︎
5. It’s only teething… A report of the myths and modern approaches to teething by M P Ashley https://www.nature.com/articles/4801078 ↩︎
6. Teething as a Cause of Death: A Historical Review by Harry L. Gibbons and C. Kent Hebdon https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1003127/pdf/westjmed00100-0084.pdf ↩︎
7. It’s only teething… A report of the myths and modern approaches to teething by M P Ashley https://www.nature.com/articles/4801078 ↩︎
8. The Slaughter of the Innocents by W. C. Barrett https://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/dencos/ACF8385.0036.001/218:62 ↩︎
9. Editorial: Teething myths in The BMJ https://www.bmj.com/content/4/5997/604.1 ↩︎
10. The teething virus by by Howard J. Bennett and D. Spencer Brudno https://journals.lww.com/pidj/abstract/1986/07000/the_teething_virus.4.aspx ↩︎
11. Deaths registered in England and Wales https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsregisteredinenglandandwalesseriesdrreferencetables ↩︎
12. It’s only teething… A report of the myths and modern approaches to teething by M P Ashley https://www.nature.com/articles/4801078 ↩︎
13. Chapter 10: Healthier eating https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/delivering-better-oral-health-an-evidence-based-toolkit-for-prevention/chapter-10-healthier-eating ↩︎
14. It’s Alright, Ma (I’m only Teething…) Dispelling the
    Myth from the Teeth by Michal Eisenstadt, Sarah Malkiel and Uri Pollak https://juniperpublishers.com/ajpn/pdf/AJPN.MS.ID.555618.pdf ↩︎
15. Say a prayer for the safe cutting of a child’s teeth: The folklore of teething by Sarah Malkiel, Michal Eisenstadt, Uri Pollak https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpc.13636 ↩︎
16. Ibid ↩︎
17. It’s only teething… A report of the myths and modern approaches to teething by M P Ashley https://www.nature.com/articles/4801078 ↩︎
18. Say a prayer for the safe cutting of a child’s teeth: The folklore of teething by Sarah Malkiel, Michal Eisenstadt, Uri Pollak https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpc.13636 ↩︎
19. Ibid ↩︎
20. Ibid ↩︎
21. Ibid ↩︎
22. Ibid ↩︎
23. It’s only teething… A report of the myths and modern approaches to teething by M P Ashley https://www.nature.com/articles/4801078 ↩︎
24. Ibid ↩︎
25. Dental Care And Folklore https://www.clocktowerdental.com/blog/uncategorized/dental-care-and-folklore/ ↩︎
26. Ibid ↩︎
27. It’s only teething… A report of the myths and modern approaches to teething by M P Ashley https://www.nature.com/articles/4801078 ↩︎
28. The poor child’s nurse by Briony Hudson https://wellcomecollection.org/stories/the-poor-child-s-nurse ↩︎
29. New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet: Potassium Chlorate https://nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/1560.pdf ↩︎
30. The poor child’s nurse by Briony Hudson https://wellcomecollection.org/stories/the-poor-child-s-nurse ↩︎
31. Ibid ↩︎
32. Ibid ↩︎
33. Say a prayer for the safe cutting of a child’s teeth: The folklore of teething by Sarah Malkiel, Michal Eisenstadt, Uri Pollak https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpc.13636 ↩︎
34. Teething as a Cause of Death: A Historical Review by Harry L. Gibbons and C. Kent Hebdon https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1003127/pdf/westjmed00100-0084.pdf ↩︎
35. The Use of Folk Remedies Among Children in an Urban Black
    Community: Remedies for Fever, Colic, and Teething by Lynn C. Smitherman, MD; James Janisse, PhD; and Ambika Mathur, PhD https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7993269_The_Use_of_Folk_Remedies_Among_Children_in_an_Urban_Black_Community_Remedies_for_Fever_Colic_and_Teething ↩︎
36. Ibid ↩︎
37. “The Egg” in the Twenty-First Century: A Family’s Holistic Healing and Cleansing Practice by Marina Flores https://nursingclio.org/2019/09/18/the-egg-in-the-twenty-first-century-a-familys-holistic-healing-and-cleansing-practice ↩︎
38. Teething Necklaces: Are they good for your baby? by Emma’s Diary https://www.emmasdiary.co.uk/baby/teeth/teething-necklace ↩︎
39. Use of the amber teething necklace by the child population: risks versus benefits by Ana Lídia Soares Cota, Emilly Alves da Silva, Nicole Beatriz Barros de Sá Freitas, José Sarmento Lins Irmão Bisneto, Gabriella Marinho Buriti, Júlia Quintella Lessa Maia Valente, Mariana Alencar Nemezio https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9150903/ ↩︎
40. Ibid ↩︎
41. Mother warns about amber teething necklaces after one killed her son https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/amber-teething-necklace-killed-son-tiktok-b2081748.html ↩︎
42. Teething Necklaces: Are they good for your baby? by Emma’s Diary https://www.emmasdiary.co.uk/baby/teeth/teething-necklace ↩︎
43. Comment on https://www.facebook.com/littlethingscom/posts/have-you-ever-heard-of-this-teething-remedy-before/736586293217412 ↩︎
44. How to Make an Allspice Teething Necklace https://embracing-motherhood.com/how-to-make-an-allspice-teething-necklace/ ↩︎
45. Natural Teething Remedies https://kidzvildental.com/natural-teething-remedies ↩︎
46. WHY IS THERE A STRING AROUND MY BABY NECK https://community.babycenter.com/post/a32664737/why_is_there_a_string_around_my_baby_neck ↩︎
47. Comment on https://www.facebook.com/littlethingscom/posts/have-you-ever-heard-of-this-teething-remedy-before/736586293217412 ↩︎