Skip to main content

Have You Ever Wondered How People Cleaned Their Teeth Before They Had Toothbrushes?

We bet that a lot of you think brushing your teeth is annoying. You might even try to skip it every now and then, when you think your parents won't catch you! Well, imagine what your life would be like if you didn't have a modern toothbrush to clean your pearly whites. You'd do what people did before the toothbrush was invented: Find another way. Thousands of years ago, people wanted to keep their teeth and gums clean, their breath fresh and their teeth white, just like people do today. They found different tools with which to do it. Before toothbrushes, people used rough cloth and water to clean their teeth. They would also rub things like salt and chalk across their teeth to try to get rid of the grime. The ancient Egyptians made a kind of brush by splitting the end of a twig. And the ancient Chinese chewed on twigs with a special flavor to freshen their breath. People also used forms of toothpaste that they made out of ingredients you probably wouldn't want to put in your mouth. Sometimes a powder was made of the ashes of ox hooves and burned eggshells. The ancient Greeks and Romans used materials such as crushed oyster shells and bones. The Chinese are believed to have made the first natural-bristle toothbrush in the 1400s by using bristles from pigs' necks. The bristles were attached to a handle made of bone or bamboo. The first toothbrush that resembles the one you use today was made in England in the 1770s. A man named William Addis came up with the idea while he was in prison, put there for having started a riot. He didn't think the rag he was given was cleaning his teeth well enough, so he saved a small bone from a meal. He put tiny holes in it and used glue to attach pig bristles he had gotten from a prison guard. The first patent for a toothbrush was awarded to an American named H.N. Wadsworth in 1857, but it wasn't until the invention of nylon in the 1930s that toothbrushes came to look like the ones you use. And it wasn't until after World War II that Americans started brushing their teeth regularly. U.S. soldiers brought the daily habit back home with them from abroad, and that helped make the practice popular.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nutriton Information

  Basic Nutrition Information important for you and your pearly whites! Everyone knows that a balanced, nutritious diet is essential to healthy living. But did you know that eating patterns and food choices play an important role in preventing tooth decay and gum disease, too? You may eat with your eyes first, but your mouth, teeth, and gums are more than just tools for eating. They’re essential for chewing and swallowing—the first steps in the digestion process. Your mouth is your body’s initial point of contact with the nutrients you consume. So what you put in your mouth impacts not only your general health but also that of your teeth and gums. In fact, if your nutrition is poor, the first signs often show up in your oral health. Your individual nutrition and calorie needs depend on your age, gender, level of physical activity and other health factors, but according to MyPlate, a website from the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, an agency of U.S. Departmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

ORAL CANCER

ORAL CANCER           Oral cancer kills one American every hour of every day, according to the National Cancer Institute. The death is higher than many better known cancers such as melanoma. Only 50 percent of those diagnosed with oral cancer will survive more than five years. Early detection of oral cancer offers the best chance of survival, yet only one-third of oral cavity cancer is found in the earliest stages when treatment is most effective. Men and women are both at risk. In the 1950s, men older than 40 were six times more likely to be diagnosed with the disease than women. By 1997, this male-to-female ratio was 2 to 1. One-third of oral cancer now occurs in patients younger than 55. One in seven people newly diagnosed with oral cancer were younger than 40, according to recent Johns Hopkins studies published in The New England Journal of Medicine. 25 percent of this group had no traditional risk factors. Strong ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How much toothpaste are you using?

The bristles do most of the cleaning, so we’re actually overdoing it when it comes to toothpaste. All you need is a pea-size amount of fluoride toothpaste to get the job done. Kids younger than 6 should use even less—about the size of a grain of rice.
Post a Comment
Read more