History of Chinese Invention - The Invention of the Toothbrush |
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A Hygiene article in Discover Magazine, September, 2007, attributed the invention of the modern bristle toothbrush to the Chinese in the year 1498. This first true toothbrush was described as cattle-bone handle with embedded Siberian pig hair bristles. It has been difficult to locate authoratative sources on the Chinese history, however AmericanHeritage.com cites the description of the bristly hair toothbrush in a Chinese encyclopedia of 1498. Traders from China brought bristle toothbrushes to Europe in the seventeenth century. CNN reported January 22, 2003 about an MIT survey on historical inventions, that named the toothbrush as a more prized innovation than the car, the personal computer, the cell phone and the microwave. Early forms of the toothbrush have been in existence since about 3500 BCE. The toothbrush seems to have its origins in the chewing sticks of Babylonia and Egypt. A "chew stick" or siwak was a thin branch of fibrous wood with a frayed end, usually fashioned from aromatic trees to freshen the mouth, as well as cleaning it. Some toothpicks were made from porcupine quills, bird feathers, or wooden thorns. In the seventeenth century, Europeans often used rags or sponges dipped in sulfur oil or a salt solution to rub their teeth clean. Sometimes these rags were attached to a stick to help reach the back teeth, but the teeth were essentially being mopped, rather than brushed. In 1780 William Addis of Clerkenwald, England, created the first mass-produced toothbrush. Addis attached hairs from the tail of a cow to the end of a whittled thighbone, and later used horse and boar hairs to create bristle similar to the earlier Chinese version. The first patent issued for a toothbrush was by H. N. Wadsworth in 1857 in the United States, but mass production of the product in America would not come until 1885. During eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Europe, toothpicks were often made from goose feathers, or copper, silver or gold.
The American dental Association website shows an image of a toothbrush fashioned from a tree branch in their section on ancient origins of dentistry.
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