What did people do to maintain their mouths before toothbrushes and toothpaste?
Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at
9:58 pm
One thing that I have noticed when looking at pictures of indigenous peoples in a few of the countries in Africa were their smiles and overall health of their mouths, gums and teeth. These are places where toothbrushes and toothpaste aren’t necessarily commonplace. What do they do and what did people do in general before the common dental practices of today?
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There are a lot of opinions about why their teeth and gums are healthy. Various professionals disagree all over the place but if you go back to basics, they eat healthy and use sticks/bones as picks. They use leaves to "brush" and also their fingers. They use water to mouthwash.
i think sticks. also it helps to have a healthy diet
One other factor is people died at 30, before a lot of decay could occur. Some teeth are just naturally strong so I wonder if some of the problems arise from a combination of longer lives and better care leading to inferior dental set ups lasting longer than they would naturally.
they chewed on small soft tree stems, if u keep chewing on them they kind of form a brush kind of shape then they used it as brushes. and they did not have all these chocolates/toffees around them. eating apples cleans ur mouth like nothing else.
Pretty good answers. Let’s look at what Hypocrities said when he delved into dentistry. "Take thou a twig and scrub between the teeth." He understood that the source of dental infection is between the teeth even though he didn’t have a clue about bacteria. In Africa there is a root that has been effective for eons. However, in modern times, the biggest source of dental disease is refined sugar and white flour.
I am a dentist in the Indian Health Service. I practiced for 32 years as a private practitioner. I have experience with a fairly uniform genetic population and I will tell you that Indians have great sensitivity to refined sugar expressed in extremely aggressive caries and white flour in terms of obesity, and diabetes. DDS 34 yrs