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Posted by SafricanAndy (U7173046) on Monday, 26th March 2007
I have often wondered...
How did people clean their teeth in ancient times?
of course they did - everytime they washed - jan apr aug and xmas day lol
st
good point tho - how did they
Hi SafricanAndy,
Didn't they use twigs or sticks from certain plants at one point? Chew them up and they get pretty fibrous; get an antiseptic one and lo and behold, you've got a stickbrush to match the finest that Colgate can produce.
As far as toothpaste is concerned, I'm not too sure. There was an episode of "Rough Science" (I think) on the Open University some time back where they made a toothpaste out of charcoal. Unfortunately, I can't remember how effective it was, if it had any historical background, or if it made the user look like an extra from "Oliver Twist"...
Cheers,
RF
I don't know - you write a post and then instantly discover the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ have beaten you to it with an article on the same subject...
, in reply to message 4.
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 27th March 2007
It was common practise until the general availability and affordability of toothbrushes to 'wash' one's teeth with wet flannel or cotton wrapped tightly around one's finger and dipped in bicarbonate of soda (my granny even persisted in doing this when her 'teeth' reached the stage where they could be extracted each night for the purpose and then left on the bedside locker to frighten us kids). Some dentists up to recently used to advise to do this every now and again in addition to brushing in any case (the bicarbonate bit, not the extraction bit).
Why do humans need all those different kinds of teeth anyway?
Molars, Canine, Incisors and so on.
You might say, it was to enable us to chew a wide variety of foods.
But Birds eat a lot of different foods: fruit, seeds, insects, flesh, bones.
And they manage all that without teeth, just their beaks.
So why all the complicated dentition in humans - why haven't humans got beaks?
, in reply to message 6.
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Sunday, 1st April 2007
They do. My great grandfather got sent down by one for trying to slip the vig to a cream cookie in Holborn in 1902.
, in reply to message 7.
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Tuesday, 5th June 2007
Hello
People got a animal bone and stuck SOMETHING that i can't remember to it.
Its very disgusting
Bye
Catullus alleges that the Celtiberians cleaned their teeth in urine. His poem suggests it was quite effective, as I recall.
, in reply to message 10.
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 11th June 2007
Catullus was the Bernard Manning of his day. If it wasn't for his ould fella's connections he wouldn't have lived beyond his first sonnet.
I think he had more charm and was funnier than Bernard Manning, though, the condition of my Latin being what it now is, I have to take that mostly on faith. Probably the Celtiberian breath would still have been preferable to that of the Romans - and, by the way, did they follow the Greeks in oiling themselves after all those baths? I had an Armenian student once who favoured that practice - a charming lad, but somehow - phew! - we were never close.
Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:40 GMT, in reply to SafricanAndy in message 1
neolithic birch sap chewing gum has been found in bogs, complete with teeth marks. liquorice sticks are brill, i cant get them any more but used to use them at school.
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