March 14, 2012 by kasia
Being in the dental industry, I often find myself wondering things like ” what did people use to brush their teeth with hundreds of years ago?” or “what did people use for toothpaste?”. Well I decided to go on a search for interesting dental facts and here is what I found.
- Before bristled toothbrushes were invented people used twigs or their fingers to brush their teeth. Boar,
badger and horse hair was used as the first bristled brushes but were found to be too abrasive.
- Crushed eggshells, pumice or the burnt hooves of animals were used as toothpaste.
- In Roman times, urine was used as a mouth rinse to whiten teeth because it contained urea.
- Ancients believed the remedy for tooth decay was to rinse with a mouth wash made by boiling dogs
teeth in wine.
They also believed that if you tie a frog to your jaw, it would make loose teeth firm.
Airborne particles from a flushing toilet can travel up to 6 feet, so you should always keep your toothbrush at a distance greater than 6 feet.
A tooth brush should be replaced after you have had a cold or sore throat to prevent reinfection.
An average human will produce enough saliva in a life time to fill 2 swimming pools. That’s 25 000 quarts of saliva!
Pregnant woman with severe gum disease are about 8x more likely to have premature, low birth weight babies.
People with gum disease are 2x more likely to suffer from heart disease and stroke.
A sneeze exits your mouth at over 600 mph!
By not flossing, you miss cleaning 35% of your tooth surface.
A 60 second kiss burns 26 calories.
40-50% of children will be affected by tooth decay before the age of 5.
The average person spends 38.5 days in a life time brushing their teeth
Bad teeth used to be considered a rich mans disease because it was only the rich who could afford to eat sweets.
A growing fetus will begin to develop teeth 6 weeks after conception.
100 years ago one half of the North American population was toothless.
Today 10% of adults over 65 have lost their teeth.
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