{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "Human remains could still be seen at Waterloo a year after the \nbattle. A company was contracted to collect the visible bones...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/147208828823/", "html": "

davidsevera:

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Human remains could still be seen at Waterloo a year after the \nbattle. A company was contracted to collect the visible bones and grind \nthem up for fertilizer. Other Napoleonic battlefields were also \nreportedly scoured for this purpose. In November 1822 a British paper \nreported:

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It is estimated that more than a million of bushels of \nhuman and inhuman bones were imported last year from the continent of \nEurope into the port of Hull. The neighbourhood of Leipsic, Austerlitz, \nWaterloo, and of all the places where, during the late bloody war, the \nprincipal battles were fought, have been swept alike of the bones of the\n hero and of the horse which he rode. Thus collected from every quarter,\n they have been shipped to the port of Hull, and thence forwarded to the\n Yorkshire bone grinders, who have erected steam-engines and powerful \nmachinery, for the purpose of reducing them to a granulary state. In \nthis condition they are sent chiefly to Doncaster, one of the largest \nagricultural markets in that part of the country, and are there sold to \nthe farmers to manure their lands. The oily substance, gradually \nevolving as the bone calcines, makes a more substantial manure than \nalmost any other substance, particularly human bones. It is now \nascertained beyond a doubt, by actual experiment upon an extensive \nscale, that a dead soldier is a most valuable article of commerce; and, \nfor ought known to the contrary, the good farmers of Yorkshire are, in a\n great measure, indebted to the bones of their children for their daily \nbread. It is certainly a singular fact, that Great Britain should have \nsent out such multitudes of soldiers to fight the battles of this \ncountry upon the continent of Europe, and should then import their bones\n as an article of commerce to fatten her soil!

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Also:

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The flood of teeth onto the market after the Battle of Waterloo was so large that dentures made from them were known as \u201cWaterloo teeth.\u201d They were proudly advertised as such, since it meant the teeth came from relatively healthy young men.

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(Source)

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