George Washington Didn’t Have Wooden Teeth—They Were Ivory
Washington’s teeth were made of a lot of things, but not wood
When George Washington became president on April 30, 1789, he only had one tooth in his head, a single premolar poking up from his gums. A combination of bad genes and even worse 18th century dentistry meant that the man who first led the nation suffered from terrible teeth. But a toothless grin isn’t very Presidential, and so Washington wore dentures. Somewhere along the line, the famous myth that Washington wore wooden dentures took root.
But that myth, John Smith, Jr., writes in a story for the Journal of the American Revolution, is just that. “George Washington never had wooden teeth, nor did anybody of his time. It would have been kind of dumb to make teeth out of wood when better materials were available.†says Smith:
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/george-washington-didnt-have-wooden-teeth-they-were-ivory-180953273/#UWmZwwm5CrSuqwwZ.99
