toothpick
A toothpick is a simple tool that is used to remove food particles from your teeth . The traditional toothpick is thin, six to seven centimeters long, and is usually made of wood . One or two ends are pointed so that they can easily get into the spaces between the teeth. More modern toothpicks ( interdental sticks ) are usually made of plastic.
In the course of history, toothpicks have also been made from blades of grass or straws, from the whiskers of walruses , from ivory , various metals and the feathers of hens and ducks . Wood was the most common material. Until the invention of an industrial production process in the second half of the 19th century, toothpicks were mostly carved from wood chips. The Portuguese Palitos de Coimbra , carved from the wood of orange trees , were still made by hand until the 1970s. The 15 to 25 centimeter long toothpicks were particularly popular in Brazil and Argentina .
Use in public
The extent to which a toothpick can be used in public for cleaning has been subject to several changes in the course of history. For a long time it was generally frowned upon to use it openly, and there are a large number of travel reports in which the more open use of this auxiliary means in another cultural area is highlighted and criticized as a special feature. In Central Europe it was customary for several decades to use the toothpick behind a cupped hand at the table. Today, the use of toothpicks at the table is discouraged with regard to the aesthetic perception of others.
history
Prehistoric time
The toothpick is one of those tools that early relatives of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) used; The earliest evidence is traces on the teeth of Homo habilis , which were dated to an age of 1.84 million years. The toothpick is probably the oldest tool for cleaning teeth and - like the wheel - was developed independently by a number of cultures. As early as 1911, a French anthropologist had found nicks in Neanderthal teeth, which he attributed to the excessive use of primitive toothpicks. Similar notches were found in the following years, among other things, on the remains of Australian Aborigines , indigenous peoples of North America and Egyptians of the Old Kingdom . In science, however, it was generally doubted that the use of wood or bone could lead to such noticeable notches in the tooth enamel. It was thought more likely that the processing of animal tendons could lead to such traces. It was only at the beginning of the 21st century that the anthropologist and paleontologist Leslea Hlusko was able to prove that such notches appear when blades of grass are used to clean teeth. In experiments, she found that the high silica content in blades of grass means that human teeth show such traces when they are cleaned with blades of grass for three to eight hours.
The oldest cosmetic set found, which is believed to also contain a toothpick, is a small set of instruments dating from around 3,500 BC. BC . It was found during the excavation of an old royal tomb in the Mesopotamian city of Ur , which is in what is now Iraq . The instruments made of gold were attached to a silver ring and kept in a conical gold vessel. Similar but more recent finds are from Europe and the Far East and show that toothpicks were already in use in prehistoric China and Japan . Not all were made of gold . Also used silver , copper and bronze .
Antiquity
In ancient Greece , the use of small wood shavings was so common that the Greeks were sometimes referred to as toothpick chewers . The Greeks and Romans also knew toothpicks made from more durable materials such as metal and bone. Similar to the toilet set excavated in Ur, various personal hygiene devices were attached to a ring; so next to the toothpick also an ear cleaner and a tongue scraper. Some toilet sets also had a fingernail cleaner or several differently shaped toothpicks in order to be able to reach different parts of the mouth.
Both Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger and Martial mention toothpicks. Pliny the Elder recommends cleaning a sore tooth with a dog's longest tooth. More well-known, however, is the passage in the epigrams of Martial, who scoffs at vain beauties:
"The one lying down there on the middle bed with three strands running through his oily bald head and poking his wide mouth with mastic wood, lies: He has no teeth at all!"
middle Ages
The Christogram (the first letters 'χ' and 'ρ' for "Christ") on a toothpick from the late Roman Kaiseraugster silver treasure proves the wealth and the Christian faith of the owner.
The medieval Sachsenspiegel explicitly listed the toothpick as part of the inheritance of women.
Erasmus von Rotterdam (1469–1536) pointed out in his etiquette that using toothpicks was one of the “fine manners of boys”.
In the 17th century there were toothpicks as luxury items or as pieces of jewelry. They were made of fine metal and set with precious stones, often artistically chased and enamelled. There are portraits in which noblemen wear a toothpick on a chain around their necks, made by silversmiths from precious metals or from ivory . Precious toothpick containers also appeared.
Modern times
In the 18th century, the use of toothpicks was required in the first edition of Knigge . The German-American dentist Hans Joseph Sachs (1881–1974) had put together one of the largest toothpick collections. Today it is located in the Research Institute for the History of Dentistry in Cologne.
literature
- Henry Petroski: The Toothpick. Technology and Culture. Random House, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-307-27943-9 (English).
- Hans Sachs : The toothpick and its history. Berlin 1913 (= cultural history of dentistry in individual presentations , edited by Curt Proskauer, volume 1)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Petroski, p. 43.
- ^ Working group International Manners , Caution: Rumors about table manners .
- ↑ Peter S. Ungar et al. : A review of interproximal wear grooves on fossil hominin teeth with new evidence from Olduvai Gorge. In: Archives of Oral Biology. Vol. 46, No. 4, 2001, pp. 285-292, doi: 10.1016 / s0003-9969 (00) 00128-x .
- ↑ Marina Lozano et al .: Toothpicking and Periodontal Disease in a Neanderthal Specimen from Cova Foradà Site (Valencia, Spain). In: PLoS ONE. 8 (10): e76852. doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0076852 .
- ↑ Petroski, p. 10
- ↑ Petroski, pp. 7-8.
- ↑ Leslea Hlusko: The Oldest Human Habit? Experimental Evidence for Toothpicking with Grass Stalks , Current Anthropology 44, Vol. 5 (December 2003), p. 738.
- ↑ a b c Petroski, p. 13
- ↑ Petroski, p. 14.
- ^ Andreas Mettenleiter : Personal reports, memories, diaries and letters from German-speaking doctors. Supplements and supplements III (I – Z). In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 22, 2003, pp. 269-305, here: p. 288.