The Bluffer's Briefing: Dentistry

Patron saint of dentists: St Apollonia.

Patron saints of toothache sufferers: St Apollonia, St Medard and

St Osmund.

Total weight of bad teeth extracted from British children each year:

4 tons (4,064kg).

Proportion of adults in UK with no natural teeth remaining: 17 per cent.

Average number of toothbrushes bought annually per capita in UK: 1.2.

Number of practising dentists in UK: 18,600.

Average number of potential patients per dentist: 3,100.

Country whose economy is most dependent on the export of dentures: Liechtenstein.

Heads of state born with teeth: Richard III, Napoleon Bonaparte,

Louis XIV.

Number of sets of false teeth mislaid on Japanese trains in 1982: 156.

Last place to use dogs' teeth as currency: Solomon Islands (until 1850).

Effect of fitting chromium-cobalt dentures to Argentine cattle: improves fertility by 25 per cent.

Land mammal with most teeth: the numbat, a West Australian marsupial also known as the banded anteater, with 52.