Braces And The Historic Pursuit Of Straighter Teeth

It may be hard to believe but mankind has struggled with one consistent quest that has endured from the Ancient Roman days before Christ to the more modern days of placing men on the moon. The pursuit in question is not over philosophical queries such as - when does life begin, or should same sex couples marry or is it morally acceptable to use stem cells for research. The quest that has confounded man for centuries comes down to a basic question that centers around two things that are imperative to our culture - crooked teeth and vanity.

With the discovery of ancient Roman mummies with what appears to be metal wires in place across their teeth, scientists have discovered the first set of braces and learned that the desire to straighten out teeth has been in place longer than we previously thought.

Of course the ancient methods were probably not as successful as today's more modern methods especially since the material that the ancient Romans used were primitive by today's technological standards.

Beyond the ancient Romans and their one steel band version of braces, the more modernized concept that most people are familiar with emerged in the 20'Th century made from precious metals, gum rubber or steel.

The first set of these teeth straighteners that we could deem the modern model in fact, were put in place in the 1900's and they were made 14 or 18 karat gold. This is a good fact to keep in mind if your child does end up needing their teeth straightened later on in life because no matter how much it costs you to do it - you know it will be less expensive than those first gold braces were for some poor unfortunate parent.

In fact it wasn't until the 1950's that stainless steel took the lead as the accepted material for braces and made them more cost effective and accessible to the poorer masses, which would also explain why almost every teenager in this time period seemed to be wearing them as an accessory to their poodle skirt.

But even stainless steel gave way later in the late 20'Th century as scientific advancements introduced heat activated, nickel titanium wire with its superior ability to straighten teeth thanks to NASA. Nickel titanium allowed even more advances to be made in the pursuit of the perfect mouth and straight teeth - a problem that has plagued mankind since the days of wearing togas.

So from the Ancient Romans who utilized a single steel band to straighten out their young warriors crooked over bite, the concept has now evolved to a variety of braces that are smaller and better designed to fit more comfortably and work more effectively to straighten out misaligned bite patterns and crooked teeth in general.