Historical Glimpses

By Dr John Lewis Jennings, Palnis Lodge. 82 Avalon Parade, Avalon Mach. New Soulh Wales. 2107

An Early History Of Mouthguards In 1959, I believe the first commercial mouthguard to come to

Australia was the "Featherbite" (pictured), introduced by the Featherlax Dental Laboratories. Houston, Texas, USA and marketed by Coe Laboratories Inc.. Chicago, USA. It was a semi- soft outer case with a semi-soft thermo-plastic filler. It had to be fitted professionally by heating the guard in very hot water while rinsing the mouth with ice water to counter the heat when fitting. It virtually took an impression of the upper teeth. This mouthguard was rather bulky and Coe Laboratories admitted that with some persons it caused cotton wool mouth (dryness and gagging).

J T Jennings Pty Ltd had the agency for Coe in Australia with Leigh Dental Supplies. Melbourne. I became interested as my younger son. Stephen. was playing Rugby Union with Sydney Grammar School. Generally, at the time. neither the dental industry nor the dental profession seemed interested in mouthguards. During the I959 football season, I had a "Featherbite" mouthguard fitted for Stephen and gave each member of The Sydney Grammar School I 5A Rugby Union team a mouthguard and I think it was the first football team in Australia to be so protected.

The next year, Coe Laboratories produced the Coe "Rediguard" (boil and bite). which was a soft plastic guard shaped somewhat like a lower impression tray. It was effective but had a serlous retention problem. That year. 1960. the Jennings company imported 20.000 "Rediguards" which were sold exclusively to the dental profession who issued them to their patients.

We had a problem. A sports store sought supply and when we refused we were threatened with legal action under the Restrictive Trade Practices Act - but we still refused. As Coe Laboratories had not patented the "Rediguard". a local manufacturer copied it and it was sold through sports stores at a lower price than we sold the imported item.

Coe Laboratories later introduced the "Coe Guard", which had an outer case similar to the "Rediguard". However, this included a

soft cold curing acrylic filler and liquid which was mixed together, placed within the outer case and an impression taken of the upper teeth in a similar fashion to the "Featherbite" mouthguard. It had a constant sale at the time of my retirement and. to my knowledge, is still available for sale today.

I sometimes wonder why we were not more active in promoting mouthguards for contact sports.

The general sale of mouthguards posed a taxation problem. The mouthguards were subject to Sales Tax. which we paid through Customs. As a vendor selling to the dental profession (who issued them to their patients), we were regarded by the Taxation Office as retailers. If we sold them to sports stores for resale, we would have become wholesalers and been required to take out a Sales Tax Licence and make monthly returns on tax due on taxable sales. Dental goods being tax free (due to the efforts of my father, John T Jennings. whilst a Federal Member of Parliament), we decided not to promote it further as there was little interest from the dental profession.

90 AUSTRALIAN ENDODONTIC JOURNAL VOLUME 25 No. 2 AUGUST 1999