Human Teeth for Sale

A friend of mine, way back when we were first ejected into society from high school, decided to hitchhike around the country.  In other words, he made his way to California.  He did not have money.  For a little while, he joined-up with a group of migratory Mexican fruit pickers to earn a few meager wages.  Nope.  He did not do well.  The heat melted him.  He picked too slowly.   At one point, out of desperation, he gave blood at a blood bank just for something to eat and drink.

Such is a fine point of desperation.

You have probably heard tales of wolves gnawing-off their own legs to save themselves after being caught in a trap.  And there is a human equivalent in the 2010 movie 127 Hours.  The movie was based on the true-life adventure of Aron Ralston.  Ralston somehow managed to get his arm irreversibly wedged between rocks when he tumbled inside a slot canyon while hiking in Utah.  Knowing that he would dangle there until he perished from lack of water and starvation, he sawed off his own arm with a pocket knife to save his own life. 

We will sacrifice a lot to save our own life.  A few of us will even sacrifice body parts for cash.      

In recent years, a black market has developed for people wishing to sell their own body parts.  Kidneys are a big mover in this market since a person can give up one of those and walk away with a wad of cash instead.   Most of the people selling kidneys are from impoverished regions.  According to one source (Handwerk) some villagers in India sold their kidneys for as little as $800.00.  I am not sure I would sell a toenail clipping that cheap.

Just the other day I bumped into something about human teeth for sale on the internet.  I thought: Geez, how do you get those?  Do you just sock someone in the face and then pick them up off the ground?  Does someone sell them from their mouth one at a time?  Do you dig them up?  I decided that I did not wish to know that answer—I figured the answer might be the first-cousin to the answer about how sausage is made.  More than one person has told me that “you don’t want to know how sausage is made and what goes in it because you likely won’t eat it again.”  Maybe I don’t want to know where the teeth came from.

My next question: What would you do with human teeth?   

I looked that one up.  I discovered that some folks buy the teeth and use them for scientific displays or training in the various skills associated with dentistry.   That makes sense.  Other people, however, make jewelry from them.  That is maybe just a little weird.

--Mitchell Hegman