Evolution of the Toothbrush

The Chewing Sticks

The Toothbrush first appeared around 3500 BC and was used by Egyptians and Babylonians. People often chewed on one end of the stick until the fibers of the wood formed a brush which was then used to clean the teeth. These chewing sticks were the ancestors of the Miswak toothbrushes which are used the same way as the primitive chewing sticks but are made from the branches of the Salvadora persica tree. The Salvadora persica branches have healing and antiseptic qualities.  Miswak is still used today and is considered by many to be superior to modern tooth brushes (study comparing miswak and toothbrushes). The use of Miswak is especially popular amongst Muslim communities and can be purchased at most Indian, Pakistani or Arab stores.

Other forms of early toothbrushes were strips of linen (used by ancient Greeks), bird feathers, animal bones, and porcupine quills but none were as effective as another early ancestor of the modern toothbrush, boar bristles on a bamboo stick.

The Modern Tooth Brush

During the period 1498-1600, Chinese “dentists” would pluck the hairs off of cold climate pigs and paste them on bamboo sticks or animal bones. These were then used just like a modern manual toothbrush to clean their teeth. Meanwhile, Europeans were still using the ancient Greek way of brushing their teeth; They were dipping linen cloth or sponges dipped in sulfur oils and salt solutions and rubbing away all the tooth grime. Then came William Addis, who introduced the Chinese way of brushing to England in 1780.

The idea of the bristle bone tooth brush came to William Addis while in prison. Boredom and necessity drove Addis to take a bone left behind from his dinner and bristles that he borrowed from a guard and combine them to create a tool to clean his teeth. It was a far better alternate to a dirty cloth with soot and salt. After his release, William Addis became the first person to mass produce modern toothbrushes. The Addis version of the toothbrush used cow tail hair drilled and tied on to cow bones. It was a success! His company still exists today but they have moved away from using bones as the toothbrush handle. Later versions of the European toothbrushes used horse hair instead of boar hair because it was softer.

Bone and Boar Bristle Toothbrush:

Napolean Bonaparte’s horse hair toothbrush:

Patent number 18,653 marked the first toothbrush patent in the United States of America. It was registered by an entrepreneur, H. N. Wadsworth, in 1857. Mass production of tooth brushes began in 1885 and dental hygiene enthusiasts sighed a fresh breath of relief.

The World Wars

When first world war began, the need for soup bones far outweighed the need for brush handles. Once again, necessity was a catalyst that helped create Celluloid handles. Soup bones everywhere breathed a soupy sigh of relief. Molds were created in the shape of brush handles and celluloid was poured in and cooled. At this point, brush makers either dipped bristles into liquid celluloid or drilled holes into solid celluloid handles and then stapled them in.

The next evolution of the toothbrush took place in 1938 when nylon bristles were used instead of animal hair. A company called DuPont de Nemours introduced the first toothbrushes with nylon bristles. These were much more comfortable than boar hair. Boars, vegetarians, Muslim people and Jewish people (who don’t consume animal or pork products) breathed a sigh of relief. The first such toothbrush was called Dr. West’s Miracle-Tuft Toothbrush.

DuPont de Nemours used the World Wars to their advantage and used a support-the-troops war marketing campaign. Your American Duty is to brush your teeth so you can win the war.

Brushing teeth regularly became popular in the United States after US soldiers returned home and brought with them their strict habits of brushing their teeth. People were influenced by the actions of these US soldiers and brushing teeth finally became mainstream.

Late Modern Brushes

An electric toothbrush was invented in 1939 in Switzerland and it came out for public consumption in the 1960s. Broxodent, the electric toothbrush by Squibb, came out and was marketed for the “overly-vigorous type of toothbrushers”.

Dr.Scott was also another early pioneer of the electric toothbrush:

There exist over 3000 toothbrush patents today.

Oral-B is the current leading toothbrush creator and they have a wide variety of electric and manual brushes with the latest one being the Oral-B 9100.

The Oral-B Triumph 9100 with SmartGuide wirelessly transmits a map of your mouth to an LCD display. It monitors how many times you have brushed certain quadrants of your teeth and lets you know where you have yet to brush or which areas still need more work. Once your mouth is perfectly clean, it signals you to stop brushing.

Another type of toothbrush, Tooth Tunes, hums songs and tunes silently into your ear while you brush. The music stops after two minutes, the dentist recommended time for brushing teeth.

What does the future hold for toothbrushes? Will they go extinct and get replaced by something completely new or will they continue to innovate and get better? How much better can tooth brushes get any way?

Sources:

• ToothBrushes on Wikipedia
• Library of Congress
• ASME
• TIAS 2

Popularity: 7% [?]

Popularity: 7% [?]

The Smallest MP3 Player

So Steve Jobs revealed the smallest MP3 player in the world yesterday. The new iPod shuffle looks more like breath mint than an MP3 player. One of its best features: It has a BUILT IN CLIP! That means that you can clip to your shirt, or your ear. Imagine the possibilities! :-S

Remember this clip?

Popularity: 3% [?]

Popularity: 3% [?]

Arrow Mice

If it is real then does your computer pointer turn into a mouse when you use these? It looks very uncomfortable but the site trying to sell these says:

Despite the fact that some people find its form unusual, Mus2 fits neatly in hand like a normal mouse and doesn’t cause any discomfort.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Popularity: 2% [?]

Robot Shop in Japan

The world’s first robot shop has opened up in, you guessed it, Japan!

The robot museum in Nagoya, Japan will feature the “Robot Mirai Department” store, which will sell about 1,000 robot related products.

Maybe in the future more of these stores will start sprouting up everywhere like Pet stores.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Popularity: 1% [?]

$1.3-Million Cell Phone

A $1.3 Million Dollar Cellphone. It features a diamond-encrusted case with a 5-carat blue diamond center navigation button. 

I wonder if I can get a rebate on this.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Keyboard Food Tray

No more food stuck on the sides and under your keys.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger

Yahoo and MSN Messenger can now talk to each other.

Microsoft just announced that today marks the first day that interoperability between its IM client and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice is available. Microsoft says this is the first time two distinct, global consumer brands have made their IM clients interoperable. The combined user base of nearly 350 million accounts is the world’s largest, the company says.

If your friend has Yahoo Messenger and you like to use MSN messenger then that is not a problem any more. Both of you will be able to add each other to your Instant messenger.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Chinese Farmer Sells his Robots

Wu Yulu, a Chinese farmer, has been creating robots since 25 years. He has had to sell his creations to pay of his debts after his house burnt down.

All 25 robots are made of wire, metal, screws and nails found in rubbish sites, with some able to serve tea, light cigarettes and push rickshaws, the China Daily newspaper said.

“I couldn’t sleep for several days after selling the child, but I had no other choice. I had to pay off my debts,” Wu was quoted as saying.

“I love to play with robots. The cleverer they became, the deeper the emotional link I felt to them. Later, I began to call them my sons.”

Wu now plans to build new robots to help repay his debt.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

Popularity: 4% [?]

Eefoof . Make it. Post it. Profit!

Are you an Artist, Musician, or a Movie Maker? If you answered yes then this site may be quite useful to you. Basically, this site is Youtube, Newgrounds, and DeviantArt combined into one. The difference is that they will share 50% of their profit with the actual content creators. For example, if eefoof makes $5000 a month and your content brought in half of their total traffic then that means that you helped the site earn $2500 dollars. Half of that $2500 ($1250) will be for you to keep.

If this place ends up being like Youtube, Newgrounds or Deviantart then even if 1% of their income would be a huge sum of money for a content creator. I hope that the CEOs, developers, and managers of this company are able to fix all the problems in this beta soon. Once that is done I can see this site becoming quite successful.

Currently. this site is almost in Alpha testing (they are calling it a beta). The comments aren’t working, you can’t rate videos, and you don’t have most of the features that we’ve come to take for granted now. However, the administrators have promised that these problems will go away soon. Let’s hope that is true.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Dutch Concept Windmills

The Dutch Advisory has asked designers to create concept WindMills. The results, like most concept art, were very interesting:

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Popularity: 1% [?]