Laser Scans Debunk Wooden Teeth Myth

Despite what you may have been taught in elementary school, founding father George Washington’s famous false teeth were not, in fact, made of wood.

A team of researchers working with Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens has been using laser scans to analyze items that belonged to the first president of the United States. The scans reveal that Washington’s dentures, housed at the National Museum of Dentistry in Baltimore, Maryland, are actually made of gold, lead, and ivory, as well as human and animal teeth.

The researchers hope the detailed information will help them create a series of highly expressive, life-size wax and plaster statues of the American icon for display at Mount Vernon, Washington’s historic home in Virginia.

“People know that Washington was great, but many people think he was boring and nothing could be further from the truth,” James C. Rees, executive director of the Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, recently told the Associated Press. “Of all the founding fathers he was the most athletic, the most adventurous and clearly a man of action.” Rees hopes his project will help humanize Washington for people who identify him as the stodgy, dour man who appears on the dollar bill.

Washington, who is said to have brushed his teeth with salt and twigs as a child, experienced dental trouble throughout his life. Many historians believe that the medical practices of the time contributed to Washington’s poor dental health. According to the National Museum of Dentistry, blood letting and mercurous chloride, common remedies for illnesses that plagued Washington, also destroyed teeth. When his last remaining tooth was pulled in 1796, at the age of 64, Washington adopted the dentures that have become as famous an anecdote as his childhood cherry tree.

At the time, it was not uncommon to use horse and donkey teeth in dentures, which were often set on ivory plates. Washington’s false teeth were crafted by John Greenwood of New York, his final, and favorite, in a long series of dentists. The National Museum of Dentistry acquired the dentures from a local dental institute that had received them as a gift from Greenwood’s descendants. Only the lower portion of the original dentures still exists, although a reconstruction of the upper portion, created for museum partner the Smithsonian Institution in 1979, is on display as well.

The interest over these new findings has been a boon for the museum’s annual celebration of Washington’s birthday, which falls this year on Tuesday, February 22. Featuring an actor who portrays Washington for attendees, the event also includes all manner of Washington-themed food, games, and prizes, and will be held on Sunday, February 20. For more information, please visit the National Museum of Dentistry.

-DB