Today’s modern version of Multi Unit Abutments began long ago under the name more commonly known as dentures.

Dentures can be found as far back as the 1700s and varied in materials, shapes and comfort over the many, many years that they have been around.

Some consisted of animal teeth, such as hippo, walrus or even elephant tusks.

However their most prominent downfall was there extremely short shelf life, as they deteriorated over rather short periods of time.

Denture “popularity” or need became ever more increasing as our diets began to change, and more sugar was introduced into our diets, which as we well know is a massive contributor to tooth decay paired with a poor understanding and respect for oral hygiene.

A Fun Fact About Multi Unit Abutments!

President Washington is known to be one of the more popular figures in history to have used dentures and it was well believed that his were made of wood. This however despite popular belief is incorrect as his dentures were produced of very high quality hippo teeth, paired with donkey, horse and human teeth (talk about a party in your mouth…).

Another Fun Fact: The battle of Waterloo brought with it a ‘fashion’ of some sort in the form of Waterloo teeth, which basically meant that teeth were extracted from the fallen soldiers and used to construct dentures.

The first edition of porcelain dentures were introduced in the 1770’s by Duchâteau, which came with a few problems of their own. They would chip easily and their color was a bit too white which led to an unnatural appearance for those sporting them.

We have come along way since President Washington and the battle of Waterloo, and so have dentures. New materials were added into the mix, such as gold, acrylic resin, vulcanite and more.

The dentures we know today, have received a new name: Multi Unit Abutments. These are leading the way into a whole new world of technology, comfort, better patient experience and far longer shelf life than that of wood, or other animal teeth.