Sir, I congratulate Professor Gelbier on his series of articles on the development of dentistry in the past 125 years. However, I have to point out an error over the dates of the formation of the Armed Forces Dental Branches. The Royal Naval Dental Service was launched by Admiralty Order in Council on 22 January 1920, a year before the Army Dental Corps was authorised by Royal Warrant on 4 January 1921. The RAF Dental Service was inaugurated on 1 July 1930, although efforts to this end were started in 1925.

Readers might wonder why front teeth were no longer required to fire breach-loading guns. In fact, a dental standard was introduced in 1678 for grenadiers requiring them to have sufficient front teeth to bite open the fuses of their grenades and in 1696 a similar one for musketeers to release the gunpowder in their cartridges. The removal of the front teeth of a man of military age became a punishable offence until 1856 when rim-fire and centre-fire cartridges were introduced.