] This comes from a post on the `Persuasion' board which comments that Mrs Clay couldn't do much about her projecting front tooth. I wonder what teeth looked like in those days. I've posted a link below to an earlier discussion on tooth care, so we know that people did clean them.

] But what else could one do in those days to improve one's smile? I notice that in many portraits of the period, people -- especially older people -- are painted with their lips firmly closed, and have a sort of shrunken look about their mouths: was this because they'd lost their front teeth?

Absolutely! I have a photo of one of my grandmothers when she was only in her forties, in a part of the world where they didn't have very sophisticated dental care, with just that shrunken look. It wasn't necessarily the very front teeth, but losing your molars that contributed to that look. Remember, too, that they would decide to *pull* a tooth a lot more quickly in the old days, too. Instead of having an aching tooth filled, you'd have it pulled instead!

I don't mean to start an international incident, but I remember the comedian Bill Maher, who had just come back from a trip to England, talking about the difference between American and British teeth. (Of course he lives in Hollywood, where wearing braces at some point in your life is practically de rigueur!) When you think about it, cosmetic dentistry is a form of cosmetic surgery that's acceptable to people who otherwise wouldn't dream of having cosmetic surgery.