{"id":1020,"date":"2020-09-02T19:29:01","date_gmt":"2020-09-02T19:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/dental-care-blog\/a-brief-history-of-false-teeth\/"},"modified":"2020-09-02T19:29:01","modified_gmt":"2020-09-02T19:29:01","slug":"a-brief-history-of-false-teeth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/dental-care-blog\/a-brief-history-of-false-teeth\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brief History of False Teeth"},"content":{"rendered":"

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AN ESTIMATED 23 MILLION<\/b> Americans have none of their teeth left, and another 12 million are missing all the teeth of one arch. As dental health professionals, we do our part to help those numbers go down, but that\u2019s still quite a few people who need replacement teeth. There\u2019s a long and fascinating history that got false teeth to where they are today.<\/p>\n

Ancient False Teeth<\/h3>\n

False teeth have been a solution for tooth loss since at least 2500 B.C. The oldest examples we know of were discovered in Mexico and made of wolf teeth<\/strong>. Nearly two thousand years later, the ancient Etruscans were using gold wire or bands to attach human or animal teeth to a person\u2019s remaining teeth, and the tomb of El Gigel in Egypt contained two false teeth made of bone and wrapped in gold wire.<\/p>\n

The Last Few Centuries of Dentures<\/h3>\n

Bringing things into the modern age, the Japanese began using wood as a material for false teeth in the 1500s<\/strong>, but carved ivory became a popular material by the 1700s. Ivory turners, goldsmiths, and barber-surgeons would craft dentures out of ivory, human teeth, and animal teeth.<\/p>\n

Guess Who Didn\u2019t Have Wooden Dentures?<\/h3>\n

Even though wood was used as a denture material in some places, George Washington\u2019s mouth was not one of them. Thanks to a combination of a poorly balanced diet and (likely) genetics, Washington suffered a lifetime of dental problems<\/strong>, losing a tooth a year starting in his twenties. By the time he was inaugurated, he only had one tooth left!<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s dentist, Dr. John Greenwood, made several sets of dentures for the first president<\/strong>, and they were pretty advanced for the time. He made them out of hippo ivory, gold springs, and brass screws attached to human teeth. As good as Greenwood was at his job, Washington still experienced a lot of pain with them and was very insecure about the way they made his face look.<\/p>\n