It can be difficult to get your child to be excited about their dental health, but we have put together a list of 10 fun (and a few gross) dental facts to help make oral health, well, fun!
- George Washington did not have wooden teeth. His fake teeth (dentures) were made out of gold, hippopotamus tusk, elephant ivory, and other people’s teeth.
- Tongues are sort of like fingers – like fingertips, the design on your tongue is completely unique to you. Can you imagine if we used tongue prints instead of fingerprints to identify everyone?
- Try to keep your toothbrush as far away from the toilet as possible! When flushed, a toilet can spray particles up to 6 feet away. Yuck!
- The average human makes about 25,000 quarts of saliva in a lifetime. That means one person can fill up 2 swimming pools with their spit!
- In 1994, a prison inmate got the idea to braid his dental floss into a rope, he then scaled the wall and escaped.
- Do you know who has the longest teeth in the world? It’s the elephant! Its tusks (tusks are elephant’s teeth) can sometimes weigh over 400 pounds.
- A long time ago in Medieval Germany, you would cure a toothache by kissing a donkey.
- China created the first tooth brush with bristles in 1498; they would use the hair from hogs, horses, and even badgers. The first toothbrush commercial toothbrush was made in 1938.
- A snail’s mouth is as big as the head of a pin needle, but it has over 25,000 teeth in it!
- Smiles are important to keep healthy especially for you kids; kids can smile up to 400 times a day!