Brushing your teeth in the old days...

 

Ah the toothbrush. We all have one. In fact, I bet a lot of you have more than one. We can’t live without them, unless you don’t care about your teeth, and the toothbrush has been around a long time, thank goodness. Even if they didn’t exactly always resemble what we use today. It was the Egyptians and Babylonians that came up with the first toothbrushes (the Egyptians seemed to come up with a lot of things first) made from frayed twigs of all things. We know this because archeologists found among well preserved items in tombs. They buried you with everything back then, even your trusty toothbrush! 

Then the Chinese came along and made a better toothbrush. They were the ones that came up with the first natural bristle brush. Of course, the “bristles” were made from pig’s hair (ew) and they used either bamboo or bone for the handle.

Fast forward to England around 1780 and we find a guy by the name of William Addis touting his toothbrush made from cattle bone. Though he still stuck with the pig’s hair for bristles (double ew) and hadn’t come up with anything better yet.

In 1844 the first three row bristle brush was designed, thank goodness, and yes, they were still using pig’s hair! It wasn’t until around 1938 that nylon was used for the bristles. We had to wait for it to be invented you know, and that nylon finally got a little softer in the 1950’s.

Today we have electric toothbrushes, battery operated brushes, and all sorts of fun do-dads to take care of our teeth. So long as we don’t still have to brush our teeth with pig’s hair, I’m happy. In the old west, they did. Poor cowboys. But hey, there were taking care of their teeth so what did it matter?

As to toothpaste, well, you guessed it, the Egyptians were the first to use a sort of paste to clean their teeth. That would have been somewhere around 5000 B.C. They used this paste to clean and whiten teeth and to also freshen breath. Fast forward to the 1800s, and we find people using a tooth powder up until the 1850s. Then in 1873, Colgate began mass producing toothpaste in jars. It wasn’t until the 1890s that the company began using tubes, much like we do today.

So, the next time you brush your teeth, think about what they had to use back in the day and give that modern toothbrush of yours a smile!

Until next time,

Kit Morgan