Oral history

I don't know why, but it occurred to me the other day that I didn't know all that much about the history of teeth cleaning.

Yeah, I had read before about chewing sticks as the original teeth cleaning device (still popular in some parts of the world - you can download a Word document paper about them here.) And I remembered I had read before about all types of abrasive stuff that people used to try to remove gunk off their teeth.   But when and where tooth brushes and daily cleaning became popular, I wasn't sure.

A "Fun Science Facts from the Library of Congress" site gives a surprisingly specific year for the invention of something like the modern toothbrush - 1498 in China.  They took a while to catch on, it seems:

The bristles were actually the stiff, coarse hairs taken from the back of a hog's neck and attached to handles made of bone or bamboo.
Boar bristles were used until 1938, when nylon bristles were introduced by Dupont de Nemours. The first nylon toothbrush was called Doctor West's Miracle Toothbrush. Later, Americans were influenced by the disciplined hygiene habits of soldiers from World War II. They became increasingly concerned with the practice of good oral hygiene and quickly adopted the nylon toothbrush.
Some other interesting toothbrush facts:

• The first mass-produced toothbrush was made by William Addis of Clerkenwald, England, around 1780.
• The first American to patent a toothbrush was H. N. Wadsworth, (patent number 18,653,) on Nov. 7, 1857.
• Mass production of toothbrushes began in America around 1885.

Another link from that site credits the French as early adopters:

French dentists were the first Europeans to promote the use of toothbrushes in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

A New York dental practice's blog claims some pretty low figures for teeth cleaning of any kind in the US at the start of the 20th century:

In the early 1900’s only 7% of American household brushed their teeth or at least had toothpaste in their houses. During World War 1 most of the Army recruits had such poor oral hygiene that the military considered dental disease a national crisis.

A few sites say that the military strongly promoted tooth brushing during World War 2, and this habit (together with nylon toothbrushes, I suppose) meant that daily teeth cleaning finally took off in popularity.

But my favourite website talking about "oral care" is from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.  And the part of it which amused me most was this, about the liquid teeth cleaner Sozodont:

During the late nineteenth century, Sozodont was the most successful patent liquid dentifrice , due in great part to its many eye-catching advertisements. Historian Kerry Segrave notes that Sozodont company profits had reached $10 million by 1894. The product contained a high percentage of alcohol—37.15%. In 1897, the financial manager of the Sozodont firm had to testify before Congress to assure the government that consumers were not purchasing the product as a tax-free form of liquor. Sozodont also contained abrasive and acidic ingredients that gradually destroyed tooth enamel.

Heh!  37.15% alcohol!  No wonder this woman looks happy after a good long brush with it:

This product has its own Wikipedia page, but I had never heard of it before.  Given the concern that the medical profession now has that  mouthwashes containing  alcohol promote oral cancers, I can only assume that Sozodont didn't help in that regard, either.

Back to the Smithsonian site, we learn a bit more the failure of libertarianism in consumer products: 

Before new drug and cosmetic regulations were enacted in the late 1930s, consumers had little information about the ingredients and safety of the products they used. Dentists and journalists wrote articles about the need to warn the public of the dangers of many dentifrices. In 1931, the Journal of the American Dental Association reported on the danger of products such as Ex-Cel Tooth Stain Remover, Bleachodent, and Snowy White, which all contained hydrochloric acid. One such product, Tartaroff, was in 1928 famously shown to dissolve 3% of one’s tooth enamel each time it was used.

And thus ends the history lesson, for now...