The Bluffer's Briefing: Dentistry
Patron saint of dentists: St Apollonia.
Patron saints of toothache sufferers: St Apollonia, St Medard and
St Osmund.
Total weight of bad teeth extracted from British children each year:
4 tons (4,064kg).
Proportion of adults in UK with no natural teeth remaining: 17 per cent.
Average number of toothbrushes bought annually per capita in UK: 1.2.
Number of practising dentists in UK: 18,600.
Average number of potential patients per dentist: 3,100.
Country whose economy is most dependent on the export of dentures: Liechtenstein.
Heads of state born with teeth: Richard III, Napoleon Bonaparte,
Louis XIV.
Number of sets of false teeth mislaid on Japanese trains in 1982: 156.
Last place to use dogs' teeth as currency: Solomon Islands (until 1850).
Effect of fitting chromium-cobalt dentures to Argentine cattle: improves fertility by 25 per cent.
Land mammal with most teeth: the numbat, a West Australian marsupial also known as the banded anteater, with 52.
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