BELFAST, IRELAND—According to a report in the Belfast Telegraph, heavy pipe smoking among Irish famine victims caused tooth decay and tooth loss. Researchers led by Eileen Murphy of Queen’s University Belfast examined the remains of more than 350 men and women who died in the Kilkenny Union Workhouse between 1847 and 1851 and were buried in an unmarked mass grave. More than half of the individuals in the study were missing teeth, and around 80 percent suffered from tooth decay. Clay pipe stems clenched between the teeth also left marks. Jonny Geber of the University of Otago added that, in the past, the condition of the teeth of the poor men and women who lived in Ireland during the Victorian period has been blamed on their diet of milk and potatoes, but studies of twentieth-century people who consumed a similar diet have not found evidence of poor oral health. To read about the discovery of a large quantity of items that offered a glimpse into life in seventeenth-century Ireland, go to “Treasures of Rathfarnham Castle.”
