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Our History | TRICARE Dental Care | Medical and Dental Preventive Care Fitness
If you suffer from dental woes, you're not alone.
It turns out dental and oral health troubles afflicted President George Washington throughout his life, starting as young as age 24.
By age 57, Washington was wearing a full set of dentures even though he was "fastidious" about brushing his teeth with tooth powder, scraping his tongue of bacteria, and using mouthwash, according to information from George Washington's Mount Vernon estate and museum in Virginia. On display at the museum is Washington's dental hygiene travel kit.
Letters and diary entries throughout his lifetime often reference "aching teeth, lost teeth, inflamed gums, ill-fitting dentures, and a host of other dental miseries," according to the museum's information.
His communications also mention "payments to dentists and purchases of toothbrushes, teeth scrapers, denture files, toothache medication, and cleaning solutions."
Mythbusting
Legend has it that Washington had wooden teeth, but the museum's historians state that's not true. The appearance of his dentures may have looked wooden, "particularly after they had been stained," but wood was not used in constructing any of his dental fittings.
In his lifetime, Washington had many full and partial dentures made of a variety of materials, all of which required maintenance and attention.
The dentures included some of his own pulled teeth as well as teeth from other humans and "probably cow and horse teeth" that were filed down to fit his size, according to Susan Schoelwer, the museum's senior curator.