Weird human tooth collecting hobby ???

I work as a maintenance employee at a university residence. Yesterday, while fixing a broken bathroom pipe, I came across a plastic bag with roughly 300 human teeth (I%26#039;m nor exaggerating, the bag weighed at least a pound) in it, roots and all. At first I though that they must be fake, or from some other animal. But, although I%26#039;m no dentist, I know a fair bit about tooth anatomy, and I%26#039;m quite sure they were human. Also, a lot of them had cavities and silver amalgam fillings in them. That%26#039;s enough proof for me.





After the creepiness of the situation passed, I figured that it must have been a dental student%26#039;s room, or possibly a hockey player who liked to keep %26#039;toothy trophies%26#039;.





Are there any dentists out there? How common is this %26quot;tooth collecting%26quot; business? I think it%26#039;s completely disgusting. It also appears that someone took the time to thoroughly clean all the teeth, since none of them had any pulp/nerves attached.

Weird human tooth collecting hobby ???
Dental students actually need extracted teeth to practice on. That%26#039;s how they learn how to do root canals and fillings-- on extracted teeth.





I must have gone through 20+ when I was a dental student. We select the appropriate extracted tooth, mount it in the plastic jaw of a mannequin head using a molding compound, then practice doing the root canal or filling on the tooth. An instructor would grade our work.





You don%26#039;t think we would let dental students loose on real patients without letting them practice on something else first, do you? :-D
Reply:that is just disturbing
Reply:I don%26#039;t know how common it is but I found a smaller bag of human teeth about 20 years ago while cleaning out an abandoned building. I assumed that it was left by one of the homeless people who%26#039;d been squatting in the building but it was definitely more than one set of teeth, probably about 75-100. I also worked in a supermarket and a frequent customer kept a couple of her teeth in her change purse. That was really creepy, especially when she dumped one in m hand with her change.
Reply:no! wierd!
Reply:I hear that serial killers often keep trophies from their prey.... :S



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