In 1754, George Washington lost his first permanent tooth.  He was 22 years old.  By the time Washington was inaugurated as our nation’s first president in 1789, he took office with a sole intact tooth.

Washington hated dentists.  He went through nine different practitioners, each of who yanked teeth from his mouth.  Crossing the Delaware, by comparison to tolerating oral pain, was a luxury cruise for our first Commander in Chief.

In a diary entry dated January 18, 1790, the President noted:  “Still indisposed with an aching tooth and swelled and inflamed gum.” 

Oral pain would haunt Washington all his adult life and impact his Presidential productivity.  Even after Washington had lost all of his teeth, he was vexed by the pain caused by ill-fitting dentures, which in his case were made of hippo ivory. 

In an effort to protect his cheeks from irritation, Washington stuffed cotton in his mouth, thus giving him the ‘puffy’ visage we all know so well.

Dentistry has come a long way since the time of George Washington.  Or has it?

Many millions of Americans still avoid the dentist out of fear and anticipated discomfort.  These individuals all suffer unnecessary pain and most of them do lose at least some of their teeth or wait until they have no choice but to have their teeth yanked by obliging oral surgeons.

Had Washington lived in our generation, he no doubt could have saved his teeth – painlessly and without anxiety.  That is, if the American Dental Association wouldn’t interfere with his right to pursue the happiness that more than one million other patients have already discovered accompanies treatment with safe, effective oral conscious sedation.

How ironic that the ADA’s latest guidelines for anesthesia, if approved, would effectively relegate hundreds of thousands of modern-day Americans back to the “cotton” brigade Washington knew all too well.

Yes, as we celebrate President’s Day 2007, the image that comes to mind is of a frowning George Washington looking out glumly from tens of billions of one dollar bills.

If only our first President had had access to oral sedation dentistry, the father of our nation might well have gone down in history not just for his veracity but for his toothy grin. 

-- DEAN ROTBART