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While they may seem like a small detailed compared to extravagant period-piece gowns or ornate whole-head alien makeup, teeth can make a huge impact in a Hollywood costume. To prove it, here are some famous silver screen chompers and the stories behind them.
One of the most memorable qualities of Mike Myer’s groovy super spy are his unsightly teeth. Myers and his makeup artist worked with dental lab technician Gary Archer to create the look, which consisted of a temporary denture-like device made of acrylic. Austin Powers’s big yellow crooked smile seems to play into the stereotype that British people have terrible teeth, but they’re actually more of a commentary on how dental care has evolved since the 1960s, and not just in Britain: as Powers’ companion Mrs. Kensington says, “Since you’ve been frozen, there have been fabulous advances in the field of dentistry.”
Besides beaded braids, eyeliner and a grimy tricorn hat, Captain Jack Sparrow’s most iconic quality may be his multicolored smile. A grin from the pirate franchise’s hero, played by Johnny Depp, is full of gold teeth. This costume detail is actually a fairly accurate portrayal of what a pirate may have looked like in the 1700s. Gold has been used to repair teeth for centuries because it is stable and won’t corrode in the warm, moist environment of the mouth. It’s also true that pirates probably didn’t have great teeth, and not just because dentists didn’t exist yet. Scurvy, a disease caused malnutrition, particularly a deficiency of Vitamin C, can cause tooth decay and tooth loss.
As for achieving the look for his costume, Johnny Depp went to a real dentist and had actual gold teeth created. What’s more, the actor surprised the public by keeping the gold teeth after the first few movies were already in theaters. It turns out he knew that more sequels were in the works and would rather keep the gold teeth than go back to the dentist to have them removed.
The modern wave of cinematic television and movies has turned vampires from black-cloaked specters with unfortunate hairdos into genuine heartthrobs, and the vampires on the HBO series True Blood were no exception. For the most part, besides their fangs, very little set the vampires of the series apart from their mortal companions.
But special effects artist Dan Repert and series creator Alan Ball decided to do things a little differently. Instead of being visible all the time, True Blood‘s fangs appeared whenever the vampire’s mood warranted it, folding down from the roof of the mouth with a telltale sound. This design was based on snake fangs, which only fold down when a snake attacks or feeds. This effect was created by having each vampire actor do “fang” scene twice, once without false fangs on, and again with the false fangs on. The two takes were then blended together digitally at the moment the fangs appeared. Watch carefully and you’ll also notice that the fangs appear on the second incisors, rather than on the canines as in most traditional portrayals of vampires.
While Hollywood effects artists jobs may be to make mouths weird and ugly, we’re very grateful that a dentist’s job is to make smiles beautiful and healthy!
The modern toothbrush has only been around for about 90 years, but it is the latest in a long evolution of tools to fight tooth decay, stretching back thousands of years and involving a whole range of flora and fauna!
Long before our ancestors used toothbrushes to ward off tooth decay, people chewed on sticks or twigs to clean their teeth. The earliest chew sticks found date back to 3500 B.C. in Mesopotamia and a tomb from 3000 B.C. in Egypt. Archeological finds also indicate that people used bird feather quills and porcupine spines to pick and clean their teeth.
Chew sticks are still around in the Middle East and northern Africa in the form of miswaks (also called siwaak or sewak). A miswak is made from twigs from the Salvadora persica tree (or arak in Arabic), which is easily frayed to form a brush-like tip at one end. In addition to being an alternative to the toothbrush for cleaning teeth, these sticks are part of pious ritual for many Muslims.
The next evolution in anti-tooth decay tools came from China, where the first actual toothbrushes were invented. During the Tong Dynasty around the years 600-900, the first bristled toothbrushes appeared. They typically had handles made from bone or bamboo and had bristles made from the stiff hair of northern hogs.
This Chinese invention of bristled toothbrushes eventually made it to Europe in the 1600s. Europeans changed the design by replacing hog hairs with horse hair, which were softer and therefore preferable.
The first mass produced toothbrush was designed by William Addis of England in 1780. (It was around this same time that being a dentist became a formally recognized medical profession, which some scholars correlate with the rise in sugar in European diets due to colonial trade.) Addis actually created the first prototype from a piece of bone when he was briefly in prison! After gaining his freedom, he started mass producing the toothbrush, eventually passing the business on to his son. Their Wisdom Toothbrush company was family owned until the 1990s and still produces modern toothbrushes in Europe.
The next big innovation in toothbrushes came with the invention of nylon by the Du Pont chemical company in the 1930s. From then on, most toothbrushes were made with softer nylon bristles. Not only were they more pleasant to use and easier on the teeth, they were less likely to harbor bacteria like old-fashioned bristles made from animal hair.
The next big invention in toothbrush technology came with addition of electricity. The first electric toothbrush was invented in 1954 and became available in the United States in 1960. Like modern electric toothbrushes, the earliest ones involved a motor that vibrated the brush, supposedly enhancing the action of the bristles.
Who knows what the future of toothbrushing holds (maybe toothbrushing robots!). What every dentist (and patient) knows is that if you stick to using a soft bristled toothbrush (replaced every 3 months) to brush your teeth twice a day for at least two minutes, there are healthier smiles in your future!
We’ll bet the early history of dental care and dentists in the United States is far more interesting that you would have guessed, filled with famous names and genius innovations. While the technology and discoveries that led to modern dentistry happened all over the world, many notable firsts took place in the United States.
While Paul Revere is known best as a silversmith and for his famous ride during the Revolutionary War, he also briefly offered services as a dentist. He was also responsible for the first known case of using dental forensics to identify a body. After the Battle of Breed’s Hill in Boston, Revere confirmed the identity of his friend Dr. Joseph Warren by the dental bridge he had constructed for him.
When George Washington was serving as the first U.S. president, American dentist John Greenwood crafted him a set of false teeth from hippopotamus ivory, gold wire, brass and human teeth. Contrary to legend, none of Washington’s sets of dentures were made of wood. Several of his sets of false teeth still exist today and are on display at museums near his home.
Horace Hayden and Chapin Harris established the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, the first dental school in the world. This school is also the first to offer the Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) degree, which is later adopted by other institutions. The College later became part of the University of Maryland. The Dentariae Medicinae Doctorae (DMD) degree was later established by Harvard University, leading to lots of confusion over the two names for what is essentially the same dental degree!
The invention of metal tube packaging makes at home oral hygiene more convenient than ever. Toothpaste can now be sold pre-mixed in a squeezable tube. Before this, people had to mix powder with water to make their own paste whenever they cleaned their teeth.
Just a year after William Roentgen, a German physicist, discovers x-rays, an American dentist named C. Edmond Kells takes a dental x-ray of a living patient for the first time. X-rays go on to become one of dentistry’s most powerful tools for diagnosis and treatment planning.
Ancient Sumerian people believe cavities and tooth decay are caused by “tooth worms”. This belief persisted for centuries and in many different cultures. Treatments included trying to lure out the worm with honey and magic spells and potions.
The inscription on the tomb of an Egyptian scribe named Hesy-Re is the first known reference to someone as a dental practitioner. He is honored as “the greatest of those who deal with teeth, and of physicians.”
Both Aristotle and Hippocrates wrote about dentistry. They mention identifying the pattern in which adult teeth come in, stabilizing the teeth and jaw with wire, and methods for tooth extraction.
An ancient Chinese medical text includes an early mention of silver fillings. The text refers to a silver paste, which would have been quite similar to the amalgam used in modern dentistry.
If you had a toothache in the middle ages, you’d go to your barber. During this era, barbers dealt with far more than just hair and were practically medical professionals. Extracting teeth was a normal and accepted part of their job description.
In Germany, a book titled Little Medicinal Book for All Kinds of Diseases and Infirmities of the Teeth by Artzney Buchlein is the first known book exclusively about dental medicine. Topics addressed include placing gold fillings, tooth extraction and oral hygiene.
French surgeon Pierre Fauchard publishes The Surgeon Dentist, A Treatise on Teeth, the first comprehensive guide to dental care ever written. He is considered the Father of Modern Dentistry because many of the book’s ideas regarding oral anatomy, restoring teeth and creating dentures are the basis of the practice of dentistry moving forward.
As dental professionals, our ultimate goal is for every one of our patients to live their whole lives without losing their teeth. However, in the unfortunate situation that a patient is missing their teeth, dentures are a great solution to return a smile to beauty and function. Dentures have a long and legendary history, and modern technology has made today’s dentures even more natural-looking and customized than ever before.
The earliest examples of dentures appeared in the 7th Century B.C. The ancient Etruscans used a combination of gold wire and human and animal teeth to create these early dentures. By the 5th Century B.C., ancient Romans were creating similar dentures. Wooden dentures appeared in Japan in the early 1500s. These dentures were similar to modern dentures in that they were carefully carved to match the shape of a person’s mouth. The Japanese later made dentures from stone, ivory and animal horn in addition to wood.
The number of people who need dentures has grown pretty quickly over the last few hundred years. As access to sugar and tobacco increased, mostly because of large sugar cane and tobacco plantations in the Americas, tooth decay became more common and widespread. The more people ate sugar and smoked, the more their teeth fell out. It makes sense that modern dentistry started to be developed around the same time.
Affordable dentures are a recent thing. For most of the history of dentures, they were an item reserved for the upper classes. The materials and expertise required to make them made dentures very expensive.
Contrary to popular belief, the first U.S. President, George Washington, did not have dentures made of wood. His dentures were made from carved hippopotamus ivory, gold wire, and human teeth. In fact, most dentures in the 1700s and 1800s were made with other people’s teeth, which had either been collected from bodies on battlefields or even stolen from graves! Thankfully, early dentists started developing porcelain dentures, which eventually eliminated the need to take teeth from the dead or those down on their luck.
Today, dentures are made from a specialized form of acrylic (a kind of durable, hard plastic) that can be made to look just like natural teeth and gums. While most dentures are held in place by friction/suction or adhesives, there are now dentures that can be held in place by mini dental implants. These implant-supported dentures are more secure and can even help prevent tooth-loss-related bone loss. The invention of dental implants in the last century also means that many people who might have gotten dentures in the past are replacing their teeth entirely with permanent prosthetic teeth, complete with a titanium tooth root.
We hope this history of dentures has made you grateful for the advances in modern dentistry. We certainly are!
The answer: Bone loss.
A common legend says that an astronaut who returned to Earth after an extended stay on a space station had bones so weak that he broke his arm lifting a tea cup. While this story may be an exaggeration, astronauts do lose bone density at a about ten times the rate of osteoporosis when in space (source) due to the absence of gravity.
What does gravity have to do with your bones? All the bones in your body get built up or broken down (resorbed) based on the amount of stress they’re under. For most of the bones in your body, their major stressor is gravity. However, for the bones of your jaw, their stress comes from biting and chewing. But when someone loses their teeth, this stress goes away, which can lead to jawbone being resorbed by the body.
While dentures are an aesthetic and functional replacement for teeth, they apply biting and chewing pressure to your gums, instead of directly to your jawbone like a natural tooth does. Because the roots of natural teeth are embedded in your bone, so when you bite or chew something, that force is transferred through your tooth into the bone of your jaw.
This bone loss explains why you can get a new set of dentures that fit perfectly right after they’ve been manufactured, but as time goes on, they fit more and more poorly, until they are loose and uncomfortable. The dentures themselves have not changed, but the shape of the bone under your gums has.
For this reason, many believe there is no such thing as truly affordable dentures. Even the best, highest quality dentures will eventually need to be replaced due to the biological reality of bone resorption. However, it’s important to note that bone loss in your jaw will happen even more rapidly if you don’t replace your teeth with anything at all. If you’re missing teeth, dentures can help you speak, eat and look normally again. Any dentures that allow you to get some of the normal function of your mouth back are affordable dentures!
For a permanent solution to bone loss after tooth loss, dental implants are the best option. That’s because implants act as an artificial tooth root that transfers biting and chewing force directly into your jawbone, just like a natural tooth. Because your bone is still under stress from the implant, it won’t be resorbed by your body. While dental implants are more of a financial investment at first, they’ll never have to be replaced like dentures, so you only have to pay for them once. Plus, they can be maintained just like real teeth, with daily brushing, flossing and semi-annual visits to the dental hygienist.
Dental implants have allowed for the invention of a new type of denture: the implant-supported denture. This type combines the affordability of dentures with the bone-stimulating qualities of implants to create a tooth replacement solution that is much more stable than traditional dentures that are held on with adhesives. This makes implant-supported dentures the most affordable dentures there are, both in terms of your wallet and your oral health!
Test your knowledge of dentistry & your dental health! Take the quiz & see the answer key at the bottom to see how well you did.
Answers: 1:c, 2:e, 3:a, 4:d; 5:e, 6:b-False.
