Why did George Washington have wooden teeth?
He did not have wooden teeth. See story below. Each year, when Dr. Joel visits area schools in February to commemorate National Children’s Dental Health Month, he tells the story of George Washington’s teeth, long thought to have been carved out of wood. It’s amazing how this legend has survived. Here’s the true story: President Washington lost his teeth at a relatively early age. He suffered from poor dental health throughout his younger years. He had two sets of false teeth (dentures) made by the most prominent American dentist of his day, Dr. John Greenwood. They were carved from the finest hippopotamus ivory and gold. One of the sets was donated to the University of Maryland Dental School in Baltimore, the oldest dental college in the world. The dental school in turn loaned one of the dentures to the Smithsonian in 1976 for a bicentennial exhibit. The denture was stolen from a storage area of the Smithsonian (presumably for its gold content) and has never been recovered.
