Toothpaste

Toothpaste is a paste, powder or gel applied to the bristles of a toothbrush in order to help clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth.

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People who lived around the Mediterranean in the 5th millennium BC chewed a gummy substance called mastiche, derived from the resin of the mastic tree, which grew primarily in Greece and Turkey. They found it to be an effective tooth cleanser and breath freshener. 

The ancient Egyptians developed the first toothpaste, which was a crude mixture of powdered ashes of hooves of oxen, myrrh, powdered and burnt egg shells and pumice. They rubbed it on their teeth with their fingers.

A later toothpaste developed in Egypt was a mixture of iris flowers, mint leaves, pepper and powdered salt. 

The Roman toothpaste was mainly a more primitive, less tasty version using urine as a prime ingredient (the ammonia in it was an excellent cleaner). 

The ancient Chinese used baking soda or chalk as toothpastes.

Tooth powders for use with toothbrushes came into general use in the 19th century in Britain. Most were homemade, with chalk, pulverized brick, or salt as ingredients.

Taft's Myrrahline, to preserve and beautify the teeth, give healthy tone to the gums 

In New York City Colgate & Company became in 1873 the first company to market aromatic toothpaste in America. 

Originally toothpaste was sold in jars, then later metal tubes. In 1880, Doctor Washington Sheffield of New London, Connecticut introduced the first collapsible toothpaste tube, Dr. Sheffield's Creme Dentifrice. They were similar to the tubes that had just been introduced for artist's oil colors and Sheffield had the idea after his son traveled to Paris and saw painters using paint from tubes. 

Sixteen years later  Colgate & Company introduced its Dental Cream was packaged in collapsible tubes imitating Sheffield. 

FUN TOOTHPASTE FACTS

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, which was the name of a notorious pornographic magazine.

Toothpaste contains formaldehyde which is the same chemical used to preserve dead bodies.

Almost all major toothpaste brands contain sodium lauryl sulfate (also sodium dodecyl sulfate), an inexpensive lathering agent that is a known cause of canker sores. The sodium lauryl sulfate in toothpaste suppresses sweetness receptors, which is why orange juice and other juices taste so bad after brushing your teeth. In contrast, apples are known to taste more pleasant after using toothpaste. 

Toothpaste is sold in many brands.

The blob of toothpaste that sits on your toothbrush is called a "nurdle". 

In 2005, Zhonghua toothpaste unveiled the largest ever tube of toothpaste in Shanghai City, China. It was 9.7 ft long and weighed 1,719 lb.

Toothbrush

The toothbrush is a tool used to clean the teeth, gums, and tongue.

HISTORY

Before the toothbrush, people used an assortment of implements to keep their teeth clean. Ancient civilizations cleaned their teeth by rubbing twigs or pieces of wood against them. Chewing sticks, birds' feathers and porcupine quills have also been discovered in the excavated remains of the earliest bathrooms. 

In medieval Europe few brushed their teeth, and those who did generally used horse hairs. It was customary after meals to use a silver or copper toothpick, or else a goose feather. 

The first bristle toothbrushes, resembling the modern toothbrush, were made in China during the Tang Dynasty (619–907). Spines were plucked from the neck of a Siberian wild boar and set into a bone handle.

Toothbrushes were introduced to Europe through merchants and travelers in East Asia during the 17th century. French dentists were the first Europeans to promote their use.

The earliest identified use of the word toothbrush in English was in the autobiography of Anthony Wood who wrote in 1690 that he had bought a toothbrush from J. Barret.

Europeans found the hog bristle toothbrushes imported from China too firm and preferred softer bristle toothbrushes made from horsehair.

A horsehair toothbrush said to have been used by Napoleon By Science Museum London

Mid-18th century colonial Americans used to brush their teeth by rubbing soot and salt over them with a rag. 

An English rag trader, William Addis, produced the first mass produced toothbrush in 1780. After being sent to prison in 1770 for inciting riots, Addis decided that the way people were brushing their teeth could be improved. He saved a small animal bone from a meal that he had eaten the previous night, made a hole and tied through it some bristles that he'd obtained from a guard.

After his release, Addis set up a business to mass-produce toothbrushes and became very wealthy. His company, Wisdom Toothbrushes, still exists.

Source of picture http://madeupinbritain.uk/Toothbrush

Du Pont begins commercial production of nylon toothbrush bristles on February 24, 1938. They proved sturdier and more efficient than bristles of natural origin – generally wild boar bristles. They were introduced on the US market under the name “Doctor West’s Miracle Tuft Toothbrush."

Squibb Pharmaceutical introduced America's first electric toothbrush, the Broxodent, at the centennial of the American Dental Association in 1959. The original electric toothbrush had been developed 20 years earlier in Switzerland. 

FUN TOOTHBRUSH FACTS

Dentists recommend that toothbrushes be kept at least six feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.

The little rubber thingy at the end of a toothbrush is called a "stimulator tip."

The most popular toothbrush color is blue.

Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, forgot her toothbrush and had to brush her teeth with her finger.

Of the 6.8 billion people on the earth, only 3.5 billion of them use a toothbrush.

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Over 1 billion toothbrushes are discarded in the US each year, which is enough to circle the globe four times.

Paul Revere

While still a young man Paul Revere (January 1, 1734 - May 10, 1818) acquired a reputation as a designer and maker of elegant silverware; his finely wrought tankards, bowls, and pitchers were much prized, and his tea sets served the Boston aristocracy for a century.

J S Copley - Paul Revere

In addition to silversmithing, Paul Revere practiced dentistry in Boston. He learned the craft from a surgeon dentist and advertised himself as being prepared to fix loose false teeth and to clean dentures.

Revere also turned his manual dexterity to the making of artificial teeth and surgical instruments.

The silversmith Paul Revere and two other men made a midnight ride from Boston to Concord to warn the colonial militia of the approach of British troops on April 18, 1775.

Revere was a courier and soldier during the American Revolution. The American Patriots were worried that the approaching the British wanted to capture Patriot leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams. The two leaders were staying in Lexington, Massachusetts. In addition, British officials had learned that American Patriots were storing guns in Concord, Massachusetts and they wanted to destroy the firearms.

As Revere rode through towns in Massachusetts, he actually shouted "The Regulars are coming out", not "The British are coming", since Massachusetts colonists still considered themselves British citizens at the time.

20th-century depiction of Revere's ride

Paul Revere took his midnight ride on a horse named Brown Beauty.

During his late-night ride, Paul Revere stopped in a town and got very drunk, causing him to be detained by the British in a field in the city of Lincoln, Massachusetts. The British soldiers held Revere for about an hour before letting him go. Because his horse was gone, Revere ran back to Lexington, where the fighting had already begun.

Revere was riding with two other men; William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott. All three were stopped by British soldiers in Lincoln, but Dawes and Prescott escaped quickly.

After escaping, William Dawes fell off his horse. The third man, Dr. Samuel Prescott, was the only one who actually made it to their destination, Concord.

After the Revolutionary War, Revere operated a metal foundry in Boston.

1813 portrait of Revere by Gilbert Stuart

Revere died on May 10, 1818 in Boston, and was buried in the Granary Burying Ground.

In 1860, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem called "Paul Revere's Ride," which revived Revere's fame.

Source Compton's Encyclopedia

False Teeth

False teeth made from ivory and bone held together with strips of gold were worn by the Etruscans of Northern Italy around 700BC.

George Washington used to be fond of cracking Brazil nuts between his jaws, which resulted in him loosing his teeth. He had at least four sets of false teeth, some of which were extracted from the mouths of his slaves.

Washington used cannabis to ease the pain from his bad fitting false dentures.

Washington once contacted a leading dentist in Philadelphia who produced a state of art set of teeth carved from hippopotamus tusk thoughtfully drilled with a hole to accommodate his one remaining tooth.

Washington soaked his ivory dentures every night in port to improve their flavour. As a result they were in frequent need of being sent away for the removal of port stains. Unfortunately, his false teeth turned brown and gave out a nasty whiff, so they had to be discarded.

18th century Carved ivory dentures

After the battle of Waterloo in 1815, scavengers removed the teeth from tens of thousands of dead soldiers for use in dentures. The so-called "Waterloo teeth" were in demand because they came from relatively healthy young men

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, having all your teeth removed and replaced with false ones was a popular 21st-birthday present.

Before all-porcelain false teeth were perfected in the mid-nineteenth century, dentures were commonly made with teeth pulled with pliers from battlefield casualties. A huge amount of teeth from those who perished in the American Civil War were shipped across the Atlantic by the barrel for the rich and fashionable British. Many already showed signs of decay so were rejected but the ones in good condition were fixed into sockets drilled in plates of hippo jaw, which were then fitted over the gums.

At one time springs were fitted to dentures to ensure they opened simultaneously with the mouth. There was always the danger of one of the springs catching, resulting in the entire set of teeth popping out of the unfortunate diner’s mouth in the middle of a meal.

After Japanese War Criminal Hideki Tojo was arrested, he was given new dentures while he awaited a trial, the American dentist who made them secretly drilled "Remember Pearl Harbour" into them in morse code.

In Vermont, USA, women require their husbands permission to wear false teeth.

A maxillary denture. Eddau~commonswiki 

On average, half of all false teeth have some form of radioactivity.

Liechtenstein, the world’s sixth smallest country, is the largest exporter of false teeth.

Dentistry

A 14,000-year-old infected molar that was partially cleaned with flint tools is the oldest known example of dentistry.

Scientists found Bees Wax fillings, one of the earliest known forms of dentistry, in Neolithic teeth from 6,500 years ago. The jawbone was discovered in 1911 embedded in a rock inside a cave in what is now Slovenia, but nobody noticed the fillings until recently.

Dentistry started in Ancient Egypt. Whilst people used small tree branches whose ends had been frayed into soft fibers to brush their teeth, tooth doctors used sharpened flints to remove damaged molars. However once removed teeth weren't replaced.

Among the various cures the Ancient Egyptians had for toothache was splitting open the body of a live mouse, then laying it, still warm, along the patient’s gums.

False teeth made from ivory and bone held together with strips of gold were worn by the Etruscans of Northern Italy in around 700BC. They also produced partial bridgework that was strong enough to enable the user to eat.

The first dental plate made from gold was done in Greece around 250BC.

The Romans restored cavity-ridden teeth with gold crowns and utilized fixed bridgework to fix gaps from missing teeth.

A paper published in the British Dental Journal revealed that medieval dentists knew how to fill cavities, treat facial fractures, could spot oral cancer, and even knew the basics of whitening teeth. Evidence also suggests they knew how to create dentures out of cow bone and human teeth.

Until the 18th century during the European Age of Enlightenment, cavities and other forms of tooth decay were thought to be caused by a "tooth worm.”

John Hunter, the Anglo-Scottish physician of George III, published in 1778 The Natural History of the Human Teeth, in which he established that tooth decay begins on the surface of teeth, not in the interior. He maintained that decay was more likely at those sites where food particles are lodged. His book revolutionised dentistry.

The first dental school in the world, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, was founded in Baltimore, United States in 1840. It was privately funded and staffed.

In 1855 Robert Arthur became the first dentist to use gold to fill cavities.

The American Dental Association was founded in Niagara Falls, New York on August 3, 1859 by twenty-six dentists who represented various dental societies in the United States.

Today, The American Dental Association has more than 155,000 members. Based in the American Dental Association Building in the Near North Side of Chicago, the ADA is the world's largest and oldest national dental association.

George Green, a dentist from Kalamazoo, Michigan invented the electric drill for “sawing, filing and polishing teeth.” He patented his device on January 26, 1875. Unfortunately at the time there was no available source of electric current and electric batteries were difficult to obtain and maintain, so his drill was initially of little use. In time, its development revolutionized dentistry.

For his role as the villain in the 1991 film Cape Fear, Robert De Niro reportedly paid a dentist $5,000 to have his teeth ground down to look more menacing for the character. After production was complete, he then paid $20,000 to have his teeth restored to their original condition. 

One hundred years ago, half of the adults in North America were completely toothless. Today, we are at around seven to eight percent.

Dentist

A physician named Hesi-Re was the earliest dentist whose name is known. He lived in ancient Egypt during the rule of Netjerikhet, 2667-2648 BC, 3rd Dynasty and was called “Chief of the Toothers."

King James IV of Scotland was an amateur dentist. He even paid people to let him practice on their teeth.

The Russian Czar Peter the Great was greatly interested in dentistry and he often assisted dentists in their operations. His retinue of 250 courtiers were unwilling accomplices to his hobby as their monarch carried out spot-checks on the mouths of anyone who happened to be passing and if any tooth looked suspect he removed it. He kept the teeth in a little bag and often showed them off to visitors.

A former school teacher Lucy Hobbs Taylor became the first woman in the United States to earn a dental degree in 1866 after years of failing to gain admission to dental schools because she was female. 

In 1867 Lucy Hobbs Taylor joined her husband James’ practice in Lawrence, Kansas, becoming the first woman to be admitted into a state dental association.

John Henry "Doc" Holliday (1851 – 1887), was an Atlanta dentist who moved to the American southwest after being diagnosed with tuberculosis in the hope that the climate would prolong his life. He took up gambling as a profession and earned a national reputation as a gunman.

Nashville, Tennessee dentist William Morrison, was also an avid inventor, and has a number of inventions to his credit. One of them is the first cotton candy (dairy floss, back then) machine, which he invented in 1897 in cooperation with confectioner John C. Wharton.

The Nazi dentist Martin Hellinger, convicted of removing dental gold from victims at Ravensbrück, was released in 1955 and given a special grant to reopen his dental practice.

Greeeen is a popular Japanese pop rock/hip hop/breakbeat vocal group from Kōriyama in Fukushima Prefecture, who have recorded a number of chart-topping albums. Their logo is of a mouthful of teeth because the four members are actual dentists. They have never shown their faces in the public and their identities are still unknown to protect their dentistry careers.

The president of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, was his predecessor’s dentist.

The standard advice to “see your dentist twice a year” was actually invented by an advertising agency for Pepsodent toothpaste.

According to a survey done by Time Magazine, 59% of Americans would rather have a dental appointment than be sitting next to someone talking on a cell phone.

The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

40% of Americans have never visited a dentist.

If you are severely scared of going to the dentist,  you have a phobia called odontophobia.