How did people brush their teeth before toothpaste and toothbrushes were invented?
The development of toothpaste began as long ago as 300/500BC in China and India. According to Chinese history, a learned man, Huang-Ti, studied the care of teeth and claimed different types of pain felt in the mouth could be cured by sticking gold and silver needles into different parts of the jaw and gum. It was theories such as these that led to the development of dental cream. First attempts at tooth cleaning included using abrasives such as crushed bone, crushed egg and oyster shells, which were used to clean debris from teeth. Tooth powders were the first noticeable advance and were made up of elements like powdered charcoal, powdered bark and some flavouring agents. This would be applied to teeth using a simple stick. Toothpowder or dentifrice was first available in Britain in the late eighteenth century. It came in a ceramic pot and was available either as a powder or paste. The rich applied it with brushes and the poor with their fingers. Modern toothpastes were developed in th
