Goodlettsville Dental Services

History of Dental Braces

In 500-300 BC, Ancient Greek scholars Hippocrates and Aristotle both ruminated about ways to straighten teeth and fix various dental conditions.

Historians believe that two different men deserve the title of being called “the Father of Orthodontics.” One man was Norman W. Kingsley, a dentist, writer, artist, and sculptor, who wrote his “Treatise on Oral Deformities” in 1880. Kingsley’s writings influenced dental science greatly. Norman W Kingsley lived from 1829- 1913 and live in Warren Point, N.J,. He was a founder of New York State Dental Society in 1868. Also deserving credit is dentist J. N. Farrar, who wrote two volumes entitled “A treatise on the Irregularities of the teeth and their corrections”. Farrar was very good at designing brace appliances, and he was the first to suggest the use of mild force at timed intervals to move teeth.

The American dentist Edward Angle is also widely regarded as a father of modern orthodontics. Practising in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, his eponymous classification of dental arch relationships is used worldwide. His textbook, “Treatment of Malocclusion of the Teeth” was first published in 1887. It went into seven much revised editions and laid the foundation of the modern specialty. After tenure as professor of orthodontics in two medical schools, he went on to found the School of Orthodontia in 1910. He designed several fixed orthodontic appliance systems including the ribbon arch and then the edgewise appliance. These have evolved into the sophisticated pre-adjusted and self-ligating systems used by the great majority of orthodontists today.

Dental Braces

Dental braces (also known as orthodontic braces, or simply braces) are a device used in orthodontics to align teeth and their position with regard to a person’s bite. They are often used to correct malocclusions such as underbites, overbites, cross bite and open bites, or crooked teeth and various other flaws of teeth and jaws, whether cosmetic or structural. Orthodontic braces are often used in conjunction with other orthodontic appliances to widen the palate or jaws or otherwise shape the teeth and jaws. While they are mainly used on children and teenagers, adults can also use them.