Chapter X: The Worshipful Tooth (3)

First and last, relic-worship is a singular subject, and the habit occasionally brings honour to most unexpected objects. Thus the author of ‘Erewhon’ relates that he once passed an Italian woman kneeling in devout worship before a dentist’s show-case in the Hampstead Road, evidently believing the teeth to be worshipful and saintly relics! Doubtless they answered her purpose quite as well as any more highly authenticated fragments of humanity.