The Chinese are credited as having produced the first toothbrushes during the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907 AD). The first toothbrushes were constructed from ivory, bone, or bamboo and hog’s or horse’s hair. Two ivory handles were found in a tomb dating from 959 AD. These handles are approximately the size and shape of the modern toothbrush. There were two columns of four holes each drilled into them for the bristles. The Chinese used mouthwash daily. There were a variety of items used, including saltwater solutions, tea, horse urine, wine, and vinegar. The Romans would burn and grind up animal bones to use in their dentifrices. In India, people cleaned…
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Bibliographies!
One of my favorite things to do when I get a new book for my research is to check the bibliography. Learning what resource materials these researched used help me find additional materials. Many times my secondary source leads me right to a primary one. There have been times when I’ve gotten all the pertinent information on a particular topic, and sometimes I find additional data the researchers omitted. I’ve even been able to find sources for new areas of research. There is a lot of research that has been done on oral hygiene. There are countless primary sources that contain advice on how to keep the mouth clean and…
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The Things You Find on YouTube
OMG! You guys! I cannot believe my luck. Somehow, while searching for information on the first toothbrush, I found a YouTube video funded in part by the Chinese government showing a collection of…wait for it…ANCIENT CHINESE TOOTHBRUSHES! Pinch me. I must be dreaming. Since I do not speak, or read Chinese I used the wonders of the internet to network out to my group of friends to find someone who could do the translations for me. I wanted the labels shown of each toothbrush translated so I could research their time periods more and determine which toothbrush I would use for the great toothbrush making experiment. Because, yes, I am…
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Ducal Challenge – Final Menu
So, I made a few changes to the menu. Well, more specifically, I compiled the rest of it, and then realized we had one thing too many. I would rather serve fewer dishes and have more of them, than having a smattering of a lot of dishes. What Made the Cut Brisket Chicken barley soup Rice Balls Mac and Cheese Bites Bread and Butter Roasted Carrots (A Salat of Roots) Almond Milk Pancakes (Fruit and Almond Fritter) Brownie Bites Recipe Change – Fruit and Almond Fritter I experimented with fruit and almond fritter. The recipe just didn’t work for a large crowd as written. So, I tweaked it a little.…
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Ducal Challenge 2019
I have the privilege of cooking for Ducal Challenge again this year. I have been bestowed this honor for each year the event has been held; and this is the fourth. Every year I’ve had the distinct pleasure to have some of the children of the East volunteer to help me. Last year, I decided that if I were going to cook again, I would let them pick a dish for themselves. We are in for quite a treat this year. Below is the preliminary menu, and a little about each dish. Rice Fritters Last year, a young lady helped me make rice balls, a sweet Italian rice fritter from…
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Oral Hygiene in the Trotula
The Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine, is a twelfth century work on women’s health containing three books. In this work, there are quite a few instructions on how to take care of the teeth. This post discusses two of them. The edition of the book I used is dated 2001 from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Recipe 182 “[182]For black and badly colored teeth, take walnut shells well cleaned of the interior rind, which is green, and we rub the teeth three times a day, and when they have been well rubbed, we wash the mouth with warm wine, and with salt mixed in if desired.” The main…
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Daily Living – Dental Hygiene in the 16th Century
I apologize for being remiss! I never published my first oral hygiene paper from 2017. Or, if I did, I cannot find it since I changed sites. So, here you go! The history of oral hygiene is diverse and extensive. Contrary to believe in television and movies, people during the Middle Ages and Renaissance took great care of their teeth, as it was a sign of social standing to have well maintained teeth and sweet breath. Therefore, throughout history there is a plethora of documentation outlining the process of oral hygiene. In this work, I plan on discussing a tooth water from Naturall & Artificial Directions for health by William…
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Rome and Greece – Part 2
Welcome back! My last blog on oral hygiene discussed the works of Hippocrates, Pliny the Elder and Paulus Aegienta. I posted several passages from their works in which the care of the teeth was discussed. This blog is going to break their components down and see if we can determine if they have any modern evidence to support their use. Why, Hippocrates? The passage written by Hippocrates was broken into several parts, each building on the other. We start with the first. Hippocrates provided a list of ingredients that were to be combined together and rubbed onto the teeth. These ingredients are: the ashes from burning the head of a…
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Oral Hygiene – Rome and Greece
After I exhausted the information I was able to obtain on the history of toilet paper, I elected to move to another facet of hygiene; that of the mouth. Unlike with my research of bathroom sanitation, I was able to find a plethora of information on dental hygiene. It was more information than I could have ever hoped to find. Due to this exhaustive amount of information, I elected to break down the research into a series of blog posts. The purpose of this series is to document what was used by our predecessors. I will look at the similarities and differences in the methods and ingredients used and determine…
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Clarification on Tooth Water Project
All, I would like to make a clarification on a recent blog post. I had incorrectly identified the author and work where the recipe for tooth water was from. I have a collection containing several period works, and believed it part of John Russell’s Boke of Nurture, when, in fact, it is part of William Vaughan’s Naturall & Artificial Directions for health. The collection of works is available through Google Books. The link to the collection is: https://books.google.com/books?id=sTMJAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.