Washington having wooden teeth has been around since I learned about Washington. Just recently read an article that claimed it was not true. "Washington did indeed have terrible teeth, so much so that he had multiple dentures made. Those mouthpieces were made out of ivory, gold, lead, and even human teeth, but never any wood. Wood was not used by dentists at the time, because not only could wooden dentures cause splinters, but wood is also susceptible to expanding and contracting due to moisture — not ideal for something that lives in your mouth."
The Washington Papers include a discussion on whether or not George Washington procured some of his teeth from slaves. It is known that his dentist purchased teeth from people willing to part with them for a fee, but not necessarily from slaves.
As time goes on, new generations establish ideas of what is reasonable, acceptable, or appropriate that makes perfect sense to them, yet which may differ sharply from that of past and future generations.
People don't realize that the "norms" of today are often driven by what technology has made available rather than anyone making sacrifices for what is "right." Evolving ethics are a modern luxury. We should not get too arrogant at being "better than" just because we have options that personally cost us nothing.
John, Huh!!! Are you saying that where the product all of our times and environment? I think we are the product of everything we see, taste, smell, feel, and hear to some degree. There probably are other influences that we don't even know we have sensed. There may be a collective mindset that's generated by the masses, that affects us. Who knows....
Reminds me of the old Don Knots Movie where he was a newly licensed Dentist that went out West to make his fortune. I read that about Washington whittling his own teeth and I thought then they had to be pretty yellow if he did indeed use wood.
I've heard that before, but here's a real story about false teeth, although I can't prove it. My dad (1913-2000) had two older brothers. The middle one had his own machine shop and made his living there. He was a tinkerer, thinker, and inventor extraordinaire. Those boys all grew up during the Depression, and as my dad used to say, "Nobody had any money." That's a difficult concept for most of us Boomers to grasp. They had to go without, invent, or jerry-rig. All three knew how to lay block and build a house all the way up from there. My machinist uncle (who had some influence on me becoming a toolmaker) died around 1970-'71 -- and I never knew any of this until years later. I heard it from my dad, and it was verified by my cousin, who worked for his dad. My uncle needed false teeth, and even if he had the money he wouldn't spend it on something like that so he made his own. As the story goes, he made a plate by building up layers of tissue and glue, forming it in the roof of his mouth while still pliable. I don't know if that was the final method or not, but I do know that the first set or two of teeth did not work for whatever reason, but he kept trying. So for the teeth themselves he took a bunch of old spark plugs, put them in a rag and beat them with a hammer, breaking the porcelain parts up into random pieces. He'd take one close to whatever tooth he was trying to fashion and work away at it with a hand grinder. He then fastened them to the plate, with what I don't know, maybe epoxy. As noted, the first couple of sets didn't work out. Then, my above-mentioned cousin's future wife-to-be worked at the local five and dime. She told me the story that one day my uncle came in and asked her where the women's combs were. She showed him, and he picked out several pinkish-colored ones. She had no clue what he was up to, but later found that he'd fashioned one of the comb handle ends into where his gum would be on the denture. Whichever set it ended up being, he was buried with it. I told my dentist that story one time, probably about 15 years ago, and he got a real kick out of it. He invented several things, but the only one I remember seeing was this: In the next town over from where they lived, in PA, there was a huge paper mill that cut tons of timber from the surrounding mountains. I remember seeing piles of these things in his shop but didn't know what they were at the time. They were steel cylinders, I'm guessing about 3" in diameter and maybe 12-16" long. The front half was turned down into a cone shape, and there was a 3/8 or so hole drilled completely through it. The paper mill (or loggers?) bought them from him. They would drive the cone-shaped end into the end of a large downed tree that they wanted to split; it must have had a thread tapped into the open end. The loggers would fill the center hole with black powder, screw a plug into the end, which must have had a small hole for a fuse, light 'er up and stand back, lol. Over and out, sorry this was so long, but I don't think any of this was ever written down anywhere else in the world, and the only person alive who saw all this with his own eyes was my cousin -- who is about 79, his wife a bit younger.
Lead??? They used lead to hold the dentures together. I'm surprised he didn't get lead poisoning. Seems like they used teeth from any source available.
I guess what I was trying to say is that the source of the teeth in the past was a matter of necessity of the times...options were limited. Technology has given us choices we might deem to be "more civilized," and might cause us to hypocritically judge with a "How could they???" Those in the past worked with what they had at the time. This applies to lots of stuff. Regarding the old nature/nurture argument, I'd have to say the answer is "Yes."
I agree 100% I just like to add some of the old techniques especially with food and medical remedies in my mind are better than what we have today.
Here's another of history's myth Myth: Abraham Lincoln Wrote the Gettysburg Address on an Envelope An excerpt from the article "There’s no doubt that the 16th President was a brilliant orator. But the idea that he haphazardly scribbled one of the most important speeches in American history on the back of an envelope during a train ride sounds a little far-fetched. In reality, Abraham Lincoln toiled away at different versions of the Gettysburg Address, which he gave on November 19, 1863. Not just that, it was anything but a solo project. He collaborated with several associates on it — and there are even five original copies of the speech, not one of them on an envelope."
Truthful History is very hard to find, somewhere in the past History might have been embellished or totally re-written. A good example is Olde England at the beginning. I often wondered why Hollywood always portrayed the Royals wearing those nice fine woven ornate clothes when most of those people never even took bathes. There are truthful books from that period that did describe the true conditions and those were never embraced by libraries or readers of books. One article was talking about the sanitary conditions at the castles that are so popular, they said people were going to the bathroom on the steps because there were no bathrooms in the castle except for the higher ups, usually always stacked offset top to bottom, that is those round corners or towers attached to the side of the castles. The cess pool was at the bottom and made a great dig for historians and archeologist. It was known they had a dreadful time with lice and the lice were the reason for the WIGs worn by the men, they would shave their heads and wear the wigs because the wigs could be cleaned. It sounds a bit silly but it is true. There was no corner cleaners, and in general people's clothes were always dirty or raggedy, you can even see that in our own historical photos of the civil war. There are photos of Lincoln which looked like he had slept in his clothes for months. My brother once told me he read that the early English people were just throwing on another layer of perfume rather than taking bathes. They were into that perfume bath. I'm sure you have seen those photos of men wearing those long pointy toed shoes, turns out it was a sign of well to do people and each tried to outdo the other with the length of the toes. It became so bad the king decreed no more pointy toe shoes. There are two known pair of those shoes that were found and only those. I love history and there is so much that was never written.