I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and your holidays were filled family, friends and enjoyment.  At this time of year many of us eat until our eyes bulge----Ah, but what a great time it is!  There are still few things that I enjoy more than a pumpkin pie.  I wonder if the early colonists ate as much as we do today.  I guess we won’t know for sure, but there are some things we do know about them – their overall dental health.  Unfortunately, American colonists were widely considered to have some of the worst oral health in the world.  Indeed, contemporary reports did not paint a pretty picture of new Americans’ mouths.  In letters home from his travels in the New World, the Count de Rochambeau reported that the women, although beautiful, were nearly toothless by age 18.  Not a pretty thought! 

Peter Kalm, a Swedish botanist who traveled extensively in the Colonies, suggested at the time it was because of the mass quantities of tea the colonists drank-which the natives loathed--that was the culprit.  Additional blame may rest on a substance that is still considered a major cause of tooth decay today--refined sugar (such a surprise!).  Such was not the case for the Native Americans, however, who were reported as having teeth as white as snow.  The Native Americans did not eat sugar at that time.  The sugar was imported from the industrialized nations of Europe, and it wreaked havoc everywhere it went.

Dentistry has come a long way in the brief history of America, when the first colonies were first established.  For a toothache in 1700, colonist Cotton Mather had this suggestion:  “A thigh bone of a toad, applied to an aching tooth, rare fails of easing the pain.”  I would love to see the scientific studies on that one!

Unfortunately, with all that tooth loss, there were few trained dentists in the Colonies.  With a shortage of dentists for 100 years after the arrival of the Pilgrims, the work was left to other craftsmen.  Anyone from a barber, clockmaker and blacksmith could hang up a shingle and set to work pulling teeth and crafting new ones from ivory.

In the end, it may have been this pioneering, entrepreneurial spirit of the first Americans that pushed dentistry toward the excellent treatment we now enjoy.  We have truly been blessed and today Americans are generally considered to have the finest oral health and dentistry in the world.

I hope the rest of your holiday season is blessed and joy will abound for you and yours.