MANY years ago, when I was a dentistry student, a professor ended his lecture with the following words, “If I were marooned on a deserted island and asked what two items I want, it would be a toothbrush and some aspirins.” One can easily appreciate the statement as regards the toothbrush if one becomes familiar with its history. More importantly, one can see its importance in removing dental plaque, which is the key to good oral health.
The modern toothbrush, which is actually a high tech instrument made of plastic and nylon bristles, started out as not much more than a humble toothpick. Toothpicks are made out of wood, thorn, metal, or porcupine quills and have been around for at least 3000 years.
Oral hygiene was valued by Roman and Greek civilisations; even slaves had access to chew sticks made from the wood of trees and shrubs such as liquorice, lucern, mallow root, myrtle, dogwood, or the tender shoots of peach. The end of each stick is unravelled by chewing, separating the fibres which scrape the teeth. These sticks still are used extensively in some parts of the world today.
In Arabia and India, chew sticks or “siwaks” have a religious ritual significance. Brushing for 15 minutes is believed to be the equivalent of 70 prayers. The siwak is mentioned in early literature from Mesopotamia, considered by many to be the cradle of civilisation.
Virtually every civilisation has, at some time, produced powders, slaves or washes to freshen the breath and ward off oral disease. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, compounded a tooth powder that included burnt hare’s head and mouse parts. Roman literature is replete with recipes for dentifrices(toothpaste) and instructions for their use. The physician Rhazes (850-932 A.D) was the first one to recommend filling cavities.
The ancient dentists used to lay the patient’s head on their lap and scrape the teeth.
Giovanni Archoli, an Italian physician who died in 1484, wrote 10 rules for dental hygiene, including cleansing the teeth after meals. He was one of the first to mention the connection between food and dental decay.
By the 15th Century, English barber-surgeons performed dental procedures. They scraped teeth with various metal instruments and rubbed them with a stick dipped in “aqua fortis”, a solution of nitric acid. The acid certainly made teeth white before it ate the enamel away and caused teeth to die.
During the 1800s, toothbrushes were made by hand. The thighbones of cattle were considered superior for use as handles because they were the only ones strong enough to withstand pressure, especially when brushes became wet during use. Bristles came from the necks and shoulders of swine, especially those in colder climates like Siberia. They were considered stronger. Badger bristles were avoided because it was believed that they were too soft.
One of the first illustrations of a toothbrush accompanied the 1818 tract “Le Dentiste des Dames” (the women’s dentist). A fashion among American men was not to clean their teeth at all but have the service performed periodically by their barbers.
By 1840 toothbrushes were being manufactured in France, Germany and England. The use of new production methods and cheap labour enabled omate brushes to be made with decorated handles and innumerable small knots of bristles. The art of manufacturing brushes was taken by the French to Japan where cheap brushes were made for poorer people. In the 1890s, early studies began to link tooth decay with oral hygiene, and Americans took the brush to fight bacteria. Today, in a good supermarket in the USA, one can count at least eighty different products and brands of oral care items, including scores of different toothbrushes.
The first nylon brushes were made in 1938 and developed by researchers at E.I Dupont de Nemours. The use of nylon filaments gained widespread acceptance because of the wars and other world disturbances that interfered with the importation of good natural bristles. The combination of nylon bristles with plastic handles is still used by the manufacturer.
By 1990, electric brushes are believed to have captured roughly 20-25 percent of the market. By 1994, toothbrushes that operate on the principles of ultrasound became available to the public. Personally, that is the kind of toothbrush I have been using since then. From 1990 to 1995, several dozen new brushes flooded the American toothbrush market, featuring all kinds of shapes, sizes, colours and functions.
