Ancient dental hygiene [Archive]

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A Cup of No

June 10th 2006, 09:36 AM

The Curtmudgeon

June 10th 2006, 08:44 PM

This is sort of a weird thread, but I was thinking: "Do we have any records of people taking any sort of care of their teeth in the past? Were they all cursed with bad breath? I don't want to fall for the "ancient people were stupid" thing, but I was just curious about this.

Any info would be great!

I can't give any sort of evaluation on these links, but here are a few Google results for "Ancient Teeth":

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060408/fob5.asp

(There's about fifty-eleven references to that one story, AFAICT.)

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s983592.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18024201.200.html

(Those two are essentially one story; the first link references the New Scientist article.)

The (this certainly qualifies as "any info") Curtmudgeon

Little Shepherd

June 10th 2006, 09:07 PM

Also think about diet. Primitive diets tend to have more plants and less meat. And there are a number of plants that have chemicals that protect teeth from the bacteria that eat tooth enamel. Grapes are probably the best-known.

Also, healthy diets promote good tissue growth, including bone growth. Because of this, people who have a good diet growing up tend to have slightly wider jaws than people who grow up with bad diets. It's not a huge difference, but it doesn't take much to spell the difference between keeping and losing your wisdom teeth. And having the room for your teeth to grow in properly in general.

They may not have had the dental care we do, but they had other things going in their favor. Given our horrible American diets, it probably balances out.

Red Mark

June 12th 2006, 01:13 AM

"Do we have any records of people taking any sort of care of their teeth in the past? Were they all cursed with bad breath?"

Great question. It is one I often wonder about myself.

I'm not sure why people would be cursed with bad breath. I get the impression smell played a stronger role with ancients. Most present cultures tend to not like heavy perfume.

Mint is a plant that would be available and is used at least in modern middle eastern cuisine. There are various edible flowers too. Rose breath is a pleasant smell. Also, what counts as good smelling breath might depend on the culture too. Consider clove breath. Parsley is truly awesome for breath, but I'm not sure its origin.

Culture can play a big role on what teeth "should" look like. I remember reading about some culture where women would sharpen their teeth and dye them red. Personally, I find the whole popular painted bleached white teeth of the present cultures to be rather strange. Darker hair would have made teeth look whiter. Maybe golden yellow teeth were beautiful? I'm not sure what counted as unattractive looking teeth. Maybe lots of space between teeth was a pretty thing? Maybe crooked teeth gave men an appearance of character? Maybe they had fronts?

The essential part of cleaning teeth is the brushing, not the paste or mouthwash. I don't see why some method to clean teeth wouldn't have existed. A cloth can make a good teeth cleaner. I bet toothpicks were not terribly hard to come up with.

Boiling bones in soup would give you some calcium. Being outdoors in the sun, vitamin D. Folic acid, for example in leafy plants and eggs, is good for teeth and gums. And then there are tannins in grapes and wine. I wonder about the role of oil. Sugar seems to have played a lesser role.

In the end, I do not know. I'm just expressing my interest in your question. But with all the stuff about hair and makeup and perfume and oils, it seems like teeth wouldn't just be neglected.

"Primitive diets tend to have more plants and less meat."

Are you saying that all ancients very rarely ate meat? I'm also curious about the relevance here. Are you saying that meat is bad for teeth?

Red

Dave G

June 12th 2006, 02:31 AM

I only know that some of the present day tribes in Africa (maybe elsewhere) chew on sticks to clean their teeth. I can't remember which trees were used.

Little Shepherd

June 12th 2006, 07:09 AM

Are you saying that all ancients very rarely ate meat? I'm also curious about the relevance here. Are you saying that meat is bad for teeth?
No, and not really. I didn't mean they rarely ate meat; I meant they had better portion control, and it was helped along by nature. Herding provides ample meat for a healthy diet, but not nearly the excess that factory farming does. Also, meat isn't so much bad for teeth, but it's definitely harder on your breath than most fruits and vegetables. (spices are another matter -- garlic breath anyone?)

I forgot earlier, but a couple more culprits in modern times are table sugar and not drinking enough water.

In nature, you tend to find more complex sugars, but in modern times most sweetened items use either sucrose or fructose(high fructose corn syrup). Both of these attract certain enamel-eating bacteria. And yes, fructose is found in fruit; however, fruit doesn't provide nearly as much as modern stuff like soda and candy.

Then there's water. It's worse in the US than just about anywhere, but many people don't drink as much water as they should. Water affects many things -- skin, hair, energy level -- but it also plays a part in keeping the mouth clean by washing substances harmful to teeth away.

Pair taking in too much simple sugar with not drinking enough water, and you have a pretty dangerous combination.

Teallaura

June 12th 2006, 08:02 AM

Maybe this will help.

Source (http://www.doctorspiller.com/Nice_Teeth.htm)

Believe it or not, even if you never brushed your teeth, you would never get a single cavity if there were no sugar in your diet. No sugar, No decay....period! Even if you NEVER brushed your teeth! (If you want proof of this, go to a museum of natural history sometime and look at the skeletons of ancient humans. You will find their teeth quite worn, and some may be missing from gum disease, but you will see NO cavities! These people did not have dentists, and they did not brush their teeth, but they had limited access to concentrated sugar.)

This does not mean that sugar is evil. If you eat sugars only with meals, it does relatively little harm. 95% of all cavities are caused by specific sugar habits which people usually develop during adolescence or early adulthood as a result of a change in lifestyle. Suppose you get a job in an office where everyone gathers around a soda machine during breaks. You begin drinking soda, canned juice or sweetened ice tea, at first as a social habit, then because you get used to it. The sugar is metabolized by the germs in your mouth and turns to a dilute acid which decalcifies the enamel and dentin and causes decay. The more you drink, the more decay you get. For a more thorough discussion of this phenomenon and the specific sugar habits that may be involved, click here (http://www.doctorspiller.com/Tooth_Decay.htm).

Red Mark

June 13th 2006, 02:41 AM

I wonder if that goes for artificial sweeteners like Splenda.

Red

Gavriel

June 18th 2006, 07:43 PM