George Washington didn’t have wooden teeth, after all!
With today’s modern toothbrushes, including the electric type, dental floss and painless dentistry methods, it can be easy to forget where we came from, dentally speaking. Take a look at these fun facts about the history of dental care.
Toothbrushes From Swine Hair?
Way back during the Tang Dynasty in China, the hog-bristle toothbrush was invented. Over time, travelers to the East brought the idea back to Europe, where more hog-bristle and horse-bristle toothbrushes were made and distributed.
The first patented three-row toothbrush (also made of swine hair) came about in America in the mid 1800s; the material used changed to nylon in 1938. We’ve come a long way in this respect, haven’t we?
George’s Teeth Weren’t Made of Wood
Many have heard the stories about George Washington’s famous dentures. The legend says that they were made of wood, but that’s not actually true. The false chompers were made from hippopotamus tusk by John Greenwood, the first native-born American dentist. Washington had just one tooth left in his mouth by the time his dentures were fabricated; it was a lower left bicuspid. The false teeth were made to allow that tooth to show.
Tooth Worms, Not Sugar?
Before dental care became a matter of public health sometime after WWII, people tended to believe that cavities were caused by a “tooth worm” that had bored into the tooth. The story was that if you had a toothache, the worm was moving around in your tooth. Once the pain settled down, the worm had died or was lying still. In the middle of the 20th century, it became more widely known that sugar and bacteria caused dental decay.
Now that we know what causes cavities and have modern materials to create toothbrushes and dentures, it’s important to do what we can to keep our teeth in good condition. Be sure to brush and floss regularly, and see your dentist twice per year. Who knows what our great- great-grandchildren will be saying about our current methods, though. It’s certainly fun to think about!
Public domain image.
