Old soldiers never die

In the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century only recruits with healthy teeth were conscripted into the army. An infantryman, armed with a single-action muzzle-loading rifle using black gunpowder, was fully equipped. He had gunpowder in a paper tube and a bullet. First the soldier had to bite off the end of the paper tube to pour gunpowder into the muzzle up to a point where a spark could be struck by a mechanism with a piece of flint before pushing the bullet into the barrel. Then the soldier could fire. Young men from poor families often knocked out their front teeth to avoid compulsory conscription.