Has there ever been a dentist satisfied that all his or her patients are properly brushing their teeth and adequately brushing all surfaces at the right angles? Likely not. Former Tangletown dentist George C. Collis, who maintained a dental practice at 313 W. 48th Street, took matters into his own hands.
Collis spent many years trying to improve toothbrushing techniques. In 1975, Collis first obtained a method patent for brushing teeth in a way that included orienting against two or more surfaces of the teeth simultaneously. The next year, he obtained a patent for an electric toothbrush with the bristles arranged in a circle on a spindle. His 1983 patent, for a toothbrush now known as the Collis Curve, is his most lasting invention.
The Collis Curve was a patent for a toothbrush with curved bristles. This, of course, was a departure from the longstanding (and still widespread) practice of having straight bristles on toothbrushes.
In his patent application, Collis explained his discovery that a toothbrush using curved bristles could brush “two or more distinctly different surfaces of the teeth at the same time.” Importantly, by brushing multiple surfaces at the same time, a person using a Collis Curve toothbrush would not have to reorient the handle nearly as often. The Collis Curve was designed using “two rows of curved bristles with the concave curvature of the bristle rows facing each other and the tops of the bristle of the respective rows touching or nearly touching one another.”
Collis noted that this design was “capable of simultaneously brushing the inside (lingual) and outside (buccal) surfaces of the teeth.” In his application, Collis also noted that his design would be “easy and economical to manufacture and lends itself to mass production.”
Collis’ patent application (number 4,493,125) was ultimately granted on January 15, 1985. Collis subsequently relocated his dental practice to Brownsville, Texas, where he still practices. Forty years after the application was granted, the Collis Curve toothbrush is still sold worldwide.