Audio Clip

(1:19)
Dr David Player
First Director of the Scottish Health Education Group

Pre-NHS dentistry and "dowries"

But it was outside Hospital that was the difference in like seeing your GP you had to pay to see your GP, or you had to pay to see the dentist. I've living memory of old dears I spoke to in Edinburgh and in Glasgow and in these days young women before they got married they got all their teeth taken out so it wouldn't be a drain on their new coming husband – so a dowry to get your teeth taken out, because it was so costly to get your teeth taken out, so before they got married they got them taken out and had falsies put in and these falsies were handed down you know. I remember, I mean I was brought up in the tenements in Glasgow, in inner Glasgow, and I mean I never went to the dentist. My parents would send me down to the dental school where you were treated by trainee dentists and you didn't have to pay because you know they were allowed to practice on you. They were unable to, I can remember this personally, they were unable to give you an injection so they'd take your teeth out, drill it without any anaesthetic. That's the reality you know.