The History of Braces

Even Ancient peoples wanted straight teeth. Braces have been discovered on Egyptian mummies with metal bands wrapped around their teeth and catgut wires used to close gaps! In the early 18th century, the French were working towards modern orthodontics. Pierre Fauchard invented a “bandeau” which widened the arch. Numerous other dentists expanded on his work, but no real advances came to braces until the 20th century.

In America, the first braces were used from all types of materials but gold was especially common. Because gold is soft and malleable it was the perfect metal to wrap around individual teeth to move them. In 1929 the American Board of Orthodontics was born, and nine years later came the first synthetic toothbrush. Stainless steel was not used in mouths until the early 60’s, nor were x-rays used in orthodontics until that time.

In the 70’s new technologies were employed to hide braces. Amongst them were lingual braces that were placed on the inside of the teeth. During the 80’s tooth colored braces came into play. But today Brooklyn Invisialign makes all of these practices look dated. Brooklyn Invisalign was developed by a couple of Stanford MBA’s who had braces in high school and wanted to make the process easier. Today Brooklyn Invisalign technology is just ten years old and using computer imaging will continue to advance making Brooklyn NY braces smaller, less visible and more comfortable.