Christopher Duffin
London, United Kingdom

In the past, teething was seen as a dangerous period in the life of a young child. Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654), an English herbalist and apothecary, believed that this time of childhood development was a “necessary evil” and that children were in considerable danger of dying from fevers and convulsions that came to be associated with teething.1
Indeed, the Bills of Mortality, which monitored and listed causes of death in London from the late sixteenth century onwards, included “Teeth” as one of its identifiers. For example, in 1665 (i.e. during the Great Plague), 2,614 deaths (out of a total of 97,306 burials) were attributed to “Teeth and Worms.”2 Furthermore, various seventeenth-century authorities believed that teething might lead to the development of measles, cholera, smallpox, rickets, and other diseases.3 Unsurprisingly, families were keen to protect their children from both the distressing symptoms and possibility of death from this dangerous time. A wide range of fanciful treatments was proposed, including anointing the gums with various herbal remedies including juice of deadly nightshade (belladonna), the boiled brains of hares, and surgical cutting of the gums to make it easier for the teeth to emerge.4

Antonius Anselmus, his wife and children (Marten de Vos, 1577). Oil on oak, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels.
The wearing of amulets was common, to both protect against the dangers of teething and ease its symptoms. The Kyranides, a magico-medicinal compilation from the fourth century, appeared in English translation in 1685. Its wide range of suggestions included wearing the teeth of serpents, bears, foxes, tuna, “Zmuraena” (probably marine eels), dolphins, “Labrax” (probably bass), and “Synagris” (probably snapper).5 Other early modern sources recommended wearing henbane root and moose and deer teeth.6 A certain Major John Choke invented a “miraculous” anodyne necklace, which he promoted enthusiastically between 1680 and 1690. Supposedly efficacious for a wide range of childhood conditions including teething, he claimed that the necklace had reduced deaths from teething to less than a quarter of their previous levels.7
As early as the first century AD, Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) noted in his Natural History (Book 28, ch. 78) that the first teeth shed by horses were good to facilitate teething in children. Also, “The tooth of a wolf tied on as an amulet keeps away childish terrors and ailments due to teething, as does also a piece of wolf’s Skin.”8 Various teeth pierced to accommodate a string are known from Roman archaeological sites, and an example of a wolf’s tooth charm is shown in Fig. 1.
While rattles are known from as far back as the third century BC, more complex triform examples began to appear in the sixteenth century, and their structure, although subject to some variation, persisted through Victorian times. Common elements included whistles, bells, and a stem containing a bite stick or teether. The body of the rattle might be made from pewter, silver, silver gilt, or gold, and more expensive examples could be decorated with precious stones. Three main materials were used to make the bite bars: wolf teeth, precious red coral, and rock crystal.

The distinctive canine teeth of wolves began to be incorporated into teething aids and rattles in the sixteenth century. Surviving examples are relatively rare, but contemporary paintings of children clutching such objects indicate that wolf’s tooth rattles must have been a common nursery item for children of the nobility and well-off (Fig. 2). As with each of the materials under consideration, the tooth offered an aesthetically pleasing but supremely functional hard, cool surface for bearing down on with the gums. However, it also embodied a magico-medicinal, protective aspect. The wolf was seen as a noble, prestigious, and powerful animal. It was believed that wolf-like strength could be conveyed to the child by transference and protect the vulnerable infant against physical and spiritual harm.
Precious red coral (Corallum rubrum), harvested from the Mediterranean, was a popular but equally expensive substitute for wolf’s tooth as a teething rod. Examples survive from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century; their heyday seems to have been in Georgian and Victorian times (Fig. 3). Again, there are many children’s portraits featuring this type of rattle. The color of the coral is evocative of the reddened skin of sore gums in a teething child, and the material is often associated with blood; indeed, mythological accounts of its origins lay in the blood spatters from the severed head of the Gorgon, Medusa. Coral has a long amuletic association with children. Albertus Magnus (1193–1280) recorded that coral was worn around the neck to protect against epilepsy,9 and there are references to coral being used to cleanse the blood (especially in cases of childhood anemia, according to Paracelsus in the mid-sixteenth century) and generally strengthen the individual. Coral was also credited with broad-based supernatural powers, warding off evil in many forms—illness brought about by witchcraft, phantasms, evil spirits, ghosts, and the Evil Eye. It has also been suggested that the bells attached to the rattle were an added means of driving away evil spirits.10

Rock crystal or quartz was usually employed in the form of nicely terminated trigonal crystals recovered from rock cavities. This has a long pedigree of amuletic use as a promoter of lactation and protector against miscarriage and epilepsy. Medicinally, it was used in the treatment of urogenital problems, fevers, dysentery, leprosy, and as an antidote to poisoning. Rock crystal was also credited with being able to resist evil influences and especially to dispel nightmares.11 Although a less common component in contemporary children’s portraits, a number of examples exist (Fig. 4).
Thus, the materials employed for the teething bars in early modern rattles were chosen not only for their hardness and durability, but also with an eye towards their supposed prophylactic and strengthening powers, as well as their ability to protect against supernatural attack. The nursery must have seemed an entirely safer place for their presence.
References
- Nicholas Culpeper. Culpeper’s Directory for Midwives or a Guide for Women. The Second Part. London: Peter Cole, 1662: 148–9.
- A general Bill for this present year, ending the 19 of December 1665 according to the Report made to the Kings most excellent Majesty. London: Company of Parish Clerks, 1665.
- John Choke. The Incomparable Neck-laces of Major Choke. London, 1695.
- Culpeper, Culpeper’s Directory, 149.
- Anonymous. The Magick of Kirani, King of Persia, and of Harpocration containing the magical and medicinal vertues of stones, herbes, fishes, beasts, and birds. London, 1685.
- John Durant. Art and nature joyn hand in hand. London: Sam. Clark, 1697: 18.
- Choke, Incomparable Neck-laces.
- John Bostock and Henry Riley. The Natural History of Pliny. Vol. V. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855: 364.
- Dorothy Wykoff. Albertus Magnus Book of Minerals. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1967: 81.
- Elfriede Grabner. Die Koralle in Volksmedizin und Volksglaube. Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 1969; 65: 183–95.
- Christopher Duffin. Medicinal Quartz: Crystallus or Rock Crystal. In: Barroso M, Duffin C & Sousa G, editors. Medical Heritage of the National Palace of Mafra. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, 2020: 162–204.
CHRISTOPHER J. DUFFIN is an award-winning palaeontologist and pharmaceutical historian, now a Scientific Associate at the Natural History Museum in London.