There is such an anecdote that there is such a mural in the Thousand Buddha Cave of Dunhuang Grottoes in Shaanxi, China. In the picture, a monk is squatting underground, holding a water bottle in his left hand and his right index finger pointing to his teeth. It turned out that the monk was brushing his teeth.
This mural shows that although the ancients didn't have toothbrushes and toothpaste, they knew how to clean their teeth and maintain oral hygiene thousands of years ago.
Oral cleaning and health care records of ancient Chinese and foreign people
In the Etiology of the Sui Dynasty, it was recorded that "it is not good to rinse your mouth several times after meals, which makes people sick and decadent." After every meal, you should rinse your mouth with water so that you won't get dental caries.
In the Song Dynasty, Zhang Gao clearly pointed out in his medical theory that gargling before going to bed is very important, far more important than gargling after getting up in the morning. Zhang Jingyue, a famous medical expert, pointed out that gargling after meals can strengthen teeth until they get old.
Now, this view is very scientific. In western ancient Roman society, people often used a small frankincense stick to clean their mouths in order to beautify their teeth. It can be seen that oral health care has been paid attention to by people all over the world not only in China, but also thousands of years ago.
The evolution from apes to humans has gone through a long time, and human oral diseases have also developed and changed with the evolution of human craniofacial and tooth morphology. Ancient people attached great importance to dental health.
The ancients had all kinds of wonderful oral health care methods.
Before the appearance of brushing tools, gargling was a common method in ancient times. Salt water, strong tea and wine are all good things to gargle. Is that how mouthwash comes from? Sun Simiao, a medical scientist, once said that brushing your teeth with salt and then rinsing your mouth with warm water is also called brushing your teeth.
According to legend, in the Tang Dynasty, people used the soft end of willow branches to wipe their teeth with ointment similar to the present tooth powder. Is this the prototype of the morning toothbrush? Well, maybe so. Monks in ancient India and Southeast Asia used tooth wood to brush their teeth.
Toothwood must be similar to the willow branches mentioned above. Chew a small piece of dental wood in your mouth, spit it out and rub it into a ball, then put it in your mouth and rub your teeth and gums with your fingers. Then split the chewed end in two, throw away half and scrape your tongue with the remaining half.
After scraping your tongue, bite out a tip from the top of the tooth wood and pick your teeth with this tip. Finally, throw away the dental wood and rinse your mouth with clear water. According to records, the principles of dental care at home and abroad are basically the same. I don't know whether China influenced ancient India or whether ancient India was brought to China through the spread of Buddhism.
In fact, gargling with strong tea is the most commonly used method of cleaning teeth in ancient times, which can be clearly seen from the plot in TV movies. There are also many descriptions of gargling with strong tea in Cao Xueqin's Dream of Red Mansions.
Every time before and after meals, I see the maid holding mouthwash. Ladies and gentlemen take a sip of strong tea and spit in mouthwash. It can be seen that this has become the normal state of people's daily life.
Before the Song Dynasty, ancient people did not have the habit of brushing their teeth. They just rinse their mouths before and after meals and before going to bed to carry out simple self-care for their teeth.
But in the Song Dynasty a century later, toothbrushes and tooth powder began to appear. The Song Dynasty was really developed. Toothbrushes were sold in shops, and literati began to prepare the original tooth powder with the properties of both medicine and perfume.
Su Shi, a great writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, personally prepared tooth powder, turpentine and poria cocos as raw materials, dried them, mashed them, sieved them with a small wooden sieve and then packaged them.
Shen Kuo, a scientist in the Northern Song Dynasty, also prepared tooth powder. His method seems to be similar to that of Su Shi. He just used simple raw materials and few styles. He simply used Sophora flavescens, dried it, crushed it, and then screened it with a sieve.
The Song Dynasty was advanced, not only with the birth of tooth powder, but also with early toothpaste. Toothpaste, a new thing, was not popular in the Song Dynasty because the cost was too high for ordinary people to use. Obviously, it has become high-end goods and luxury goods.
In addition to wiping teeth and gargling with salt and tooth powder, ancient people usually had a set of oral health care methods, and knocking teeth was one of them.
As early as the Eastern Jin Dynasty, it was recorded that knocking about 200 teeth every morning could keep teeth strong and prolong life.
The principle of doing this is that when you tap your teeth, the root of your teeth is stimulated, which will make your blood run more smoothly, just as people often exercise and their muscles will grow. Knock your teeth once in the morning, and more saliva will be secreted in your mouth. Strong teeth will benefit the whole body, which is one of the secrets of longevity.
Prevention and treatment of ancient dental diseases and thinking
Let's take a look at ancient Europe, from 1000 BC to 400 BC in Achousken, central Italy, that is, during the Roman Empire. There has been a crown and bridge technology similar to that mastered by modern dental clinics.
The Etruscans in Italy invented the technique of fixing false teeth with gold hoops. In 700 BC, due to the local production of precious metals such as gold, these Italians began to use gold as the base of dentures, and then the crowns made of animal bones or ivory were fixed to the mouth of dentures with gold hoops.
In dentistry, the method of ligating and fixing loose teeth has been recorded, and relatively precise tooth extraction instruments have been exhibited. There are also records of oral erosive ulcers that are prone to occur in children.
For toothache and acute oral inflammation, ointment made of various anesthetic drugs is applied to the affected area, hot compress, warm water gargle, and alum and gallnut powder are sprinkled on the ulcer surface.
This medicine toothpaste mixture is made of sea salt, oyster shell and other gravel materials, and fresh and pleasant herbs and essential oils are added to enhance the taste.
According to historical records, the dentist was a Roman named cassius. According to historical records, it can not only remove bad teeth, but also repair decayed teeth. If 1 teeth are just a little loose, he will tie the good teeth with gold thread and pull them out with pliers.
But it is rare in China's ancient historical books. It is said that the custom of tooth extraction appeared after the Neolithic culture in Shandong.
However, tooth extraction in China is not necessarily due to diseases such as dental caries, and some are due to customs. For example, meaning may be related to adulthood or marriage, or it may be a sign of sexual maturity of men and women.
According to the investigation report of tooth wear of Yangshao culture residents in Wanggou site, the prevalence rate of dental caries in Wanggou population is 68.97%, and the caries rate is 26.56%. In ancient times, the caries of human beings were mostly adjacent caries, but in modern times, they were mostly occlusal caries.
The reason may be that the production was extremely underdeveloped at that time, and the backward production tools caused a large number of grain collections. Food is not only rough but also eaten raw, which makes it easier for bacteria to multiply in the mouth and lead to periodontal disease over time.
The severe tooth wear of the ancients increased the possibility of food wedging into adjacent spaces. The impaction of food in the adjacent space leads to the accumulation and hiding of bacteria, which is difficult to self-clean, so the incidence of adjacent dental caries is greatly improved.
It shows that if there is no dental care, the probability of dental disease is quite large, which is of course related to the coarseness of the food eaten at that time.
The development of agriculture is not yet mature, and people's refined access to food and more advanced cooking technology will reduce the wear and tear of food on teeth to some extent.
According to historical records, the earliest filling technology was invented in China. There are related records in Fifty-two Prescriptions for Diseases. Several drugs, such as elm bark and cinnamon bark, are used to fill teeth. Presumably this is to treat dental caries and diminish inflammation.
The method of treating dental caries by arsenic inactivation recorded by Zhang Zhongjing is 1700 years earlier than that in Europe. Moreover, in the Tang Dynasty, a dentist's office appeared. The Compendium of Materia Medica in the Ming Dynasty also recorded a kind of tooth filling agent made of white tin and mercury.
In this way, although the ancients did not have advanced machines, their application in the theory of traditional Chinese medicine was really great and wise.
This kind of tooth filling agent was applied in European countries in the19th century. Because of its stable physical properties, convenient use and low cost, it is still in use today and is one of the main filling materials for tooth restoration.
The filling of teeth in Song Dynasty was very developed, and the related skills and methods of filling teeth were recorded in the history books in detail. Isn't this the originator of dental implants now?
The ancients did not have such machines and tools for filling and treating teeth. They only use drugs and simple instruments to treat dental diseases and oral hygiene, which is really the crystallization of great wisdom.
In the Yuan Dynasty, in the Liangjiang area, the economies of the past dynasties in the Liangjiang area were very developed. Locals like to wrap their restored teeth with gold foil and silver foil to keep them clean and healthy. It looks like the inlaid teeth are neat and white, which is very high-grade.
By the Ming Dynasty, dental prosthetics halls were all over the capital, and the materials used for dental prosthetics were not limited to the silver paste of the Song Dynasty, such as gold teeth, silver teeth and even ivory, and even hard and high-grade sandalwood teeth.
Dentistry has gradually developed from setting one tooth to setting several teeth, with exquisite technology and continuous dental setting. This kind of embedded denture not only solves the problem of using teeth due to diseases, but also expands the aesthetic and decorative functions.
By the Qing Dynasty, filling teeth had become quite common. Throughout the historical trend, regardless of China in the Tang and Song Dynasties or the Roman Empire in the west, the ancient people's care technology for teeth also kept pace with the times as time went on.
The ancients had the methods and wisdom of the ancients to solve all kinds of things that may be impossible or incredible for people today.