Sir, I attended a school in the early 1960s which had many horse-chestnut trees within the grounds. We were told that during WWII, conkers were collected by staff and students alike for use in toothpaste manufacture.
Was this true? Or were they in fact being used for cordite production, with the toothpaste story a cover? Can any reader enlighten me?
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Yewe-Dyer, M. FACT or fiction: Horse-chestnut toothpaste. Br Dent J 216, 437 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2014.304
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2014.304