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Postmortem Tooth Extraction

A

Anonymous

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My partner, a Funeral Director, recently had to contract with a dentist who removed all the teeth from one of the cadavers at the funeral home at the request of the family of the deceased. Has anyone ever heard of this macabre ritual? Why would a family wish to keep such a morbid reminder of their lost loved one? Is this some kind of Black Magic thing?
 
My dad was an undertaker, and I've never heard him tell me anything like that! (corpses breathing out and sitting up - yes - tooth extraction - no).

Maybe they believe in the tooth fairy. Was the body to be cremated or buried? Maybe the teeth had gold fillings? I've heard of an Italian thing when nail clippings can be used for nefarious ends, but teeth? Maybe the family were very disturbed in their bereavement and wanted to hang onto something belonging to the deceased. Perhaps something like "Uncle Herb had such lovely teeth and was so proud of them!"
 
That is strange! maybe they wanted them as keepsakes. The hair of the deceased was made into mourning brooches in the Victorian era so perhaps they were to be distributed among family members...............this is going to bug me until I find out the reason now.

I'm probably getting my authors and stories mixed up but didn't Edgar Allen Poe write a short story called 'Berenice' which involves the removal of the said Berenice's teeth from her grave by her lover?, so it could be a fetish thing?...........
 
Would taking the teeth possibly have something to do with suspected radiation / chemical poisoning? Will things like that get concentrated in one's teeth? Maybe the estate has a lawsuit pending.
 
perhapse someone wanted a new set of false teeth (like Waterloo teeth sets... advertised as comming from the casulties of Waterloo)
 
Only a suggestion...

Tooth fillings used to be (maybe still are, any dentists on the board?) mercury/silver amalgam.

I remember reading somewhere that when a body is cremated the mercury is released as vapour and is carried out through the flue.

Mercury is highly toxic, and although one set of teeth wouldn't produce much, over time the crematorium would be releasing quite a bit of mercury into the environment.

It could be that revisions to health and safety or environmental protection laws have clamped down on the level of mercury permitted in the emissions and that filled teeth have to be removed and disposed of in some safer manner.

Any H&S experts or enviromentalists around?
 
Blueswidow said:
That is strange! maybe they wanted them as keepsakes. The hair of the deceased was made into mourning brooches in the Victorian era so perhaps they were to be distributed among family members...............this is going to bug me until I find out the reason now.

I'm probably getting my authors and stories mixed up but didn't Edgar Allen Poe write a short story called 'Berenice' which involves the removal of the said Berenice's teeth from her grave by her lover?, so it could be a fetish thing?...........
Click to expand...

Yes that was Poe, the character was driven mad by grief and retrieved from the grave the feature he missed most.
 
I shall enquire of my Funeral Directing drinking partner tonight...
 
Re: Only a suggestion...

Timble said:
Tooth fillings used to be (maybe still are, any dentists on the board?) mercury/silver amalgam.
Click to expand...

yep still are..used for 150 years and wears very much better than any epoxy filling stuff they use (as low as 4 to 7 years wear as for 15 plus for amalgum)
 
Well crematoriums aren't part of the Environment Ageny's pollution inventory so I don't know who monitors them.
 
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