In ancient Rome people used to brush their teeth with scraps of cloth combined with urine from the Iberian Peninsula, rubbed back and forth in the mouth. They believed that urine could be sterilized, and Spanish urine was the best in their eyes, so the ancient Roman aristocracy sent people to the Iberian Peninsula to purchase fresh urine in buckets.
In the time of ancient Greece, Europe liked to grind the ashes of animals into powder for cleaning their teeth. First hold a mouthful of water in your mouth, then pour the powder into the mouth to gargle. Some primitive tribes also used sand sticks or charcoal to clean their teeth.
The ancient Japanese admired black teeth and regarded them as beautiful. They usually use rust water or betel nut to dye their teeth black, which they believe will prevent tooth decay. Black teeth have been popular in Japan for centuries.
In the pre-Qin period, Chinese people had the habit of brushing their teeth with salt water. In the Tang Dynasty, people liked to put willow branches in water, and after biting them, there would be fibres flowing out, forming a kind of tooth brush with bristles, and people would rub their teeth with such them. In the Song Dynasty, people boiled medicinal materials such as Tuckahoe into something similar to toothpaste for mouthwash, and also used powder of medicinal materials and sugar and roll them into balls which ended up like something similar to modern day chewing gum.
If you could travel back in time, which country would you most want to visit to experience brushing your teeth?
