p-dental-care-msg - 3/15/11 Period dental care. NOTE: See also the files: p-dental-care-art, p-hygiene-msg, p-privies-msg, perfumes-msg, Mouthwash-art , p-sex-msg, mirrors-msg, sugar-msg, bathing-msg, birth-control-msg, Roman-hygiene-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From: hrjones at uclink.berkeley.edu (Heather Rose Jones) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Oral hygiene (was: cloven fruit) Date: 24 Nov 1994 03:29:39 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley David Salley (salley at niktow.canisius.edu) wrote: : First you say they're used in oral hygiene and then you say you don't use : them? ;-) BTW, what _DID_ the average person use for oral hygiene back : then? Are tooth brushes/paste/etc. period? I don't know how matters stood in less civilized parts of the world, but Giraldus Cambrensis -- writing of 12th century Wales -- notes: "Both sexes take great care of their teeth, more than I have seen in any country. They are constantly cleaning them with green hazel-shoots and then rubbing them with woollen cloths until they shine like ivory. To protect their teeth they never eat hot food, but only what is cold, tepid or slightly warm." [from the Penguin Classics tranlation] Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Oral hygiene (was: cloven fruit) From: una at bregeuf.stonemarche.org (Honour Horne-Jaruk) Date: Fri, 25 Nov 94 08:14:29 EST > David Salley (salley at niktow.canisius.edu) wrote: > > : First you say they're used in oral hygiene and then you say you don't use > : them? ;-) BTW, what _DID_ the average person use for oral hygiene back > : then? Are tooth brushes/paste/etc. period? Respected friend: Several different books of manners, from the 14th to 16th century, have recipes for tooth-cleaning mixtures to be rubbed on with a wet linen cloth. The only one I remember offhand involved charcoal and chalk wetted with lees (dregs) of wine. If I ever find a palatable mix I may start putting it up for sale at Pennsic... Yrs in Service (Friend) Honour Horne-Jaruk R.S.F. Alizaunde, Demoiselle de Bregeuf C.O.L. SCA It's rude to yell at other people for not obeying the rules if you aren't. From: Kelly.Coco at mvs.udel.EDU Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Oral hygiene (was; cloven fruit) Date: 27 Nov 1994 13:27:10 -0500 Steiner sends Greetings unto the Rialto! First, I'd like to thank all those who responded to my query on the origins of the *cloved* fruit. Thanks especially (I think...) to Alizaunde (sp?) for starting this tradition. Who knew how big it would become? We've been doing it for what seems like forever too! Second, I'd like to respond to the request about oral hygiene in period. I found this poem of Catullus on just that subject. It is reprinted from _The Poems of Catullus_ Penguin Books, Translator P. Whigham, 1966 reprint 1979 It is a bit on the baser side of Lit. as you would expect of Catullus. If you are easily offended here is the disclaimer to stop reading now...... Because he has bright white teeth, Eg- natius whips out a tooth-flash on all possible (& impossible) occaissions. You're in court. Counsel for defense concludes a moving per- oration. (Grin.) At a funeral on all sides heart-broken mothers weep for only sons. (Grin.) Where, when, whatever the place or time - grin. It could be a sort of 'tic'. If so, it's a very *vulgar* tic, Egnatius, & one to be rid of. A Roman, a Tiburtine or Sabine, washes his teeth. Well fed Umbrians & over- fed Etruscans wash theirs daily. The dark Lanuvians (who don't need to), & we Veronese, all wash our teeth.... *But we keep them tucked in* We spare ourselves the nadir of inanity- inane laughter. You come from Spain. Spaniards use their morning urine for tooth wash. To us that blinding mouthful means one thing & one only- the quantity of urine you have swallowed. FWIW, it would seem that our ancestors *did* practice some sort of oral hygiene. I doubt that the Spanish actually used urine, that this was merely Roman one-upmanship, but you never know.... Hope that this helped if anyone cared. :-) Vale, Steiner From: rorice at nickel.ucs.indiana.edu (rosalyn rice) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Brown teeth? Date: 10 Sep 1996 00:13:57 GMT Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington David M. Razler wrote: >Not quite: The diet included a good deal of whole grain and pre-selective >-breeding veggies, not to mention tough meats, which meant a good deal of >tough food that cleans but wears down teeth, ala Milk-Bone dog bisquets. More to the point, the staple of medieval diet was stone-ground flour. Since some of the grit from the millstone inevitably made it into the flour, over a lifetime a person's teeth could get ground down. However, medieval people *did* brush their teeth, either by using chewed twigs or a clean rag possibly dipped in vinegar. There might have been other methods that I don't know about. They also tended to eat a diet that was fairly good for the teeth - low sugar. Wine and cheese are also good for inhibiting bacterial growth, but I don't know how much of these foods medieval people got, on average. I disagree with Alexander's statement that medieval vegetables and meats were tough enough to affect the teeth. There is no evidence that medieval fruits and veggies were *tougher* than their modern counterparts. (Smaller and possibly less hardy, certainly. Tougher, no.) The vast bulk of meat available to medieval people would have been "free-range" meat, which would be leaner and hence tougher than modern meats. (The "toughness" of a piece of meat is determined as much by the amount of water and fat as by the thickness of the muscle fibers). This might account for the popularity of recipies that boil or stew meat, rather than roasting it. But, in any case, the solution to tough meat is to boil it longer rather than chew it longer. Lothar From: LIB_IMC at centum.utulsa.EDU (I. Marc Carlson) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: re: Brown Teeth? Date: 17 Sep 1996 00:37:11 -0400 > >So we check them, and the teeth are brown. Were they brown at >the time of death? What techniques do you use to distinguish >between teeth stained in the grave and teeth that were already >stained when they went into the grave? Now I'm not a forensic dentist, but I would assume that if all they are is "brown", and everything else is in good shape that, they were *probably* that way when they died (regardless of what color they were). For example, in smokers today, while their teeth are sometimes discolored from smoking, I don't recall that this discoloration is necessarily caused by dental decay. From another angle, I have sitting before me photographs of the Bocksten Bog Man's skull, and the forensic analysis of his teeth. Except for the brownish black color, which is not as prevalent in the rest of his skeleton, the only real dental deficiency he has is the decalsification caused by bog. He has no caries or peridontitis. Also he had no wisdom teeth (or any sign that he ever had any). By his clothing, he died in the middle 14th century. I. Marc Carlson, Reference Librarian |LIB_IMC at CENTUM.UTULSA.EDU Tulsa Community College, West Campus LRC|Sometimes known as: Reference Tech. McFarlin Library | Diarmuit Ui Dhuinn University of Tulsa, 2933 E. 6th St. | University of Northkeep Tulsa, OK 74104-3123 (918) 631-3794 | Northkeepshire, Ansteorra From: dickeney at access2.digex.net (Dick Eney) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Teeth (WAS Re: Glasses) Date: 24 Jan 1997 17:15:38 -0500 Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA Laura Shumar wrote: >Can anyone comment on the "If we're going to be authentic we'd better >pull our teeth 'cause NO ONE in the Middle Ages had all their teeth" >line that pops up every now and then in discussions on authenticity? > >Offhand, I'd dismiss it as BS - granted, there wouldn't have been >many remedies for dental pain beyond extraction, but I still think >many people must have had sound teeth. >Wouldn't a low-sugar diet reduce dental trouble? As I understand it, >high sugar foods (especially those that are in contact with your >mouth for a long time, like hard candy) are the worst cavity-causing >culprits...I think the carbohydrates are pretty bad, too - but at >least bread is chewed and swallowed pretty quickly. > >So, has anyone actually studied this? From some archaeology articles I've been reading, one standard way to guess the age of a skull is by how much the teeth have been worn down; early bread contained lots of rock particles because the grain was ground on stone mortars, so the teeth were worn down by the grit. After a certain age, the teeth are described as being worn down "flat" which I hope means only that the bumpy surface is flattened and not that the tooth is worn down to the gumline! Of course, long before then the enamel would be gone and the dentine exposed. A more considerable problem might have been scurvy; fresh vegetables being hard to get during the winter, the gums soften and the jaw bone loses calcium and sound teeth fall out for lack of support. Nevertheless, it would seem that, since this is a standard method of guessing the age of a skull, most people kept their teeth, though not necessarily in good condition (IIRC at least one Neanderthal skull was found that showed signs of death by mastoid infection). =Tamar the Gypsy (sharing account dickeney at access.digex.net) Subject: ANST - FW: Byzantine/Persian medical (dental) history Date: Mon, 01 Jun 98 11:47:24 MST From: Vicki Marsh To: "'ansteorra'" Greetings, Ansteorra, From Baroness Zara Zina In response to Mistress Gunnora's plea, I would forward a letter from my lady-in-waiting, who is attending dental school. This is in response to a class I taught at Elfsea Baronial College on Byzantine Medicine. I love it when one person's research leads to another's interest. Now I want to find out more. I want to know when they started using ether and exactly what the teeth were fumigated with. Did you know that jewelry tools are practically identical to dental tools? A great place to find jewelry tools for cheap is at gun shows where they sell used dental tools. ZZT -----Original Message----- From: Sue Dittrich [SMTP:dittrich at flash.net] Sent: Saturday, May 30, 1998 10:45 PM To: zarazina at flash.net Subject: Byzantine/Persian medical (dental) history Hello, my dear! I hope things are going well for you. I found my notebook for the history of dentistry, and I did find some things that might be interesting for you and your research on Byzantine medicine. Here goes: Rhazes (868-932 AD) Persian-Used a cement compund of alum and mastic to fill teeth; avoided extractions by using mouthwashes for strengthening teeth. Avicenna (Abu-Ali-al-Husayn-Ibin-Abdulah-Ibin-Sina) 980AD-1037 AD (Persian)-- Ranked with Hippocrates and Galen as the most influential physician of the period; theorized a cause for odontalgia; Held to the worm theory of caries* with treatment of fumigation; wrote the Canons of Medicine (Ganun) which was the standard medical textbook until the end of the 15th C. Albucasis (936-1013 AD) Cordova-wrote a treatise called the "Al-Tarsif" which was devoted to surgery.; Made the first set of dental scaling instruments; treated deformities (dental and medical); first to show aversion to the "Tonsores" or "barbers." Yeber-Arabic chemist who discovered ether. *Worm theory of caries-- This theory is analogous to the worm in an apple. The worm lives inside of the tooth, and eats away at the insides, eventually rotting the tooth and causing caries. Avicenna believed that if they fumigated the tooth, the worm would leave, and would stop the rotting of the tooth. I hope these help! Documentation is only from this notebook by my professor, Frank Baker, D.M.D. You might want to look up other documentation for verification. Genevieve Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 14:24:39 -0500 From: "Elyse C. Boucher" <70521.3645 at compuserve.com> To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Potpourri & Dentifrice Merouda here. Here I am, bein' naughty at work. :) Amazon.com delivered today, and today's shipment Brought _Martha Washington's Book of Cookery_! Yeehah! This is a book of Elizabethan and Jacobean receipts that was at one time in the possession of Martha Washington: the version I obtained is transcribed by Karen Hess. As a Tudor persona, I especially enjoy late and gray period "primary" sources, so this one is a delight. A while ago someone asked for general information on household scenting, and for the life of me, I can't recall who asked or where I read it. I'm thinking it was misc.consumers.frugal, but it *might* have been sca-arts. I read so many lists that I get confused sometimes. Anyway, I was flipping through my new book and noticed a number of receipts for pommadors and soaps and so forth. The thing that really caught my eye was this, however, from the _Sweetmeats_ portion of the book: Indeed, I have always been curious about the nuts and bolts of daily living in period, and so, for those who might be interested in such things, here are a couple more quotes from the Hess transcription of MWBOC. 325. To Keep the Teethe clean & white & to fasten them. take cuttle fish bone and make it into very fine powder, & rub the teeth therewith. then wash them after with white wine & planton water, & 3 or 4 drops of spirrit of vittorell mixt with them & rub them well with a cloth. & it will preserve the teeth from putrefaction, & keep them fast, white, & clean, & preserve from the toothache, If it be used every day. I've been planning "in persona" days for my next trip to Pennsic and maybe WWVI; this would be an easily made dentifrice for use upon that day. However, I would suggest that anyone planning to TRY this omit the "spirrit of vittorell" as it is dangerous. I'm primarily familiar with vitriol through my scribal activities (it's a primary component in ink making), and I assure you, a distillation of vitriol will give you sulfuric acid--not something you want in your mouth. Actually, reading through the recipes, I've noticed the use of several scribal materials as medicinal preparations--jeweler's rouge, Armenian Bole, cochineal, others. This interests me greatly; I always enjoy finding how various substances get put to many uses. But I digress. :) Your Servant, Merouda Pendray Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 02:32:22 -0000 From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" Subject: Re: SC - Response from author of horrible period foods article. >Note that of the two researchers, one is studying Alaskan cultures, and the >other Newfoundland culture. What has that to do with 11th century Northern >Europe? Unless they are basing their information on studies of the bodies >of Viking explorers ... If such bodies were to be found, this is probably exactly the information they would give. Teeth of skeletons excavated from 11th and 10th century Icelandic churchyards and other burial sites are always very worn, even in quite young people, and I believe the same applies to the Norse Greenlanders. That may be because dried fish and meat and other "hard food", as we call it, was a large part of their diet. Nanna Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 10:18:36 -0400 From: Sharon Gordon To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Subject: [Sca-cooks] Ancient 4th century AD Egyption recipe for herbal toothpaste According to the document, written in the fourth century AD, the ingredients needed for the perfect smile are one drachma of rock salt - a measure equal to one hundredth of an ounce - two drachmas of mint, one drachma of dried iris flower and 20 grains of pepper, all of them crushed and mixed together. More details at http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/ main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F01%2F19%2 Fwtooth19.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=81773 Sharon gordonse at one.net From: "Decker, Terry D." To: "'sca-cooks at ansteorra.org'" Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 13:21:37 -0500 Subject: [Sca-cooks] RE: Sca-cooks digest, Vol 1 #3387 - 14 msgs > According to the document, written in the fourth century AD, the ingredients > needed for the perfect smile are one drachma of rock salt - a measure equal > to one hundredth of an ounce - Sorry, the drachma is not "one hundredth of an ounce," as the article states. The measure is based on the Greek drachma coin. A drachma was slightly more than one tenth of an ounce avoirdupois (.113 oz. or 3.2 grams). Bear Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:15:38 -0500 From: Johnna Holloway To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] dental was Green stuff and brown glop From: Mark Hendershott <<< I think I recall seeing reports that analysis of skeletal remains from the (early?) medieval period revealed pretty good teeth and that poor dentition began to be more noticeable later on. >>> A quick search through various databases doesn't wholeheartedly support this notion that their teeth were perfect because they didn't eat sugar. Here's one abstract that notes the typical treatments. Br Dent J. 2004 Oct 9;197(7):419-25. Dental treatment in Medieval England. By T. Anderson Medieval (12th-14th century) medical literature suggests that care of the teeth was largely limited to non-invasive treatment. Cures, mainly for toothache and "tooth worm" were based on herbal remedies, charms and amulets. Bloodletting was advised for certain types of toothache. There is also documentary evidence for powders to clean teeth and attempts at filling carious cavities. Surgical intervention for oral cancer and facial fracture is also known. Post-operative infection and abscess formation can be identified and early forms of false teeth are mentioned. Another study noted that chronic inflammatory disease of the maxillary sinus was present and "In contrast to the present-day situation, we found dental infection to be a major cause of maxillary sinusitis." Johnnae, playing librarian Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:30:17 -0500 (GMT-05:00) From: Elise Fleming To: "sca-cooks at ansteorra.org" Subject: [Sca-cooks] State of Teeth in Middle Ages Greetings! I want to echo the comments that dental health during the Middle Ages was better than we thought. I'm not sure about specific articles on dental health, but the most recent mention was in an article cited by SCAtoday. You can find it at http://www.economist.com/node/17722650 . It's an article about the Battle of Towton and the violence of that battle. The teeth part is in the section called "Who Are You Calling Short?" Alys K. Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:15:47 -0800 (PST) From: Dan Schneider To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] State of Teeth in Middle Ages True, but this isn't actually a report: it's closer to a museums "about us" page. It's simply an introduction to the main project and brief description of some of the subprojects, with very general mentions of some of the findings of those subprojects. The webpage also doesn't mention the proposed sequence of blows for skull 25; that info, and presumably the statement about the teeth would have come from either speaking with the osteologists, or reading of the actual osteo reports. Dan --- On Sat, 1/29/11, Johnna Holloway wrote: <<< Odd. The original report on their website http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/archsci/depart/resgrp/towton/ fails to mention teeth or dental at all. Johnnae >>> Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:28:44 -0500 From: Johnna Holloway To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] State of Teeth in Middle Ages If you actually follow all the links as I did, you'll eventually come to the Osteological Analysis Towton Hall & Towton Battlefield Towton North Yorkshire Site Code: TOWMG03 & TOWARO03 NGR: SE 48444 3956 & SE 479 382 Report No 0504 June 2004 4.0 DENTAL HEALTH Analysis of the teeth from archaeological populations provides vital clues about health, diet and oral hygiene, as well as information about environmental and congenital conditions. A total of 22 teeth were recovered from the BF03, six of which were still retained in a right maxilla (Table 5). Additionally, two teeth were recovered from the plough soil on the battlefield prior to the excavation BF03, which were included in Table 5. No teeth were recovered from TH03 or MG03. The lack of skulls meant that none of the individual skeletons had surviving dentitions. Similarly, no loose teeth were recovered from the recently excavated part of the mass grave. Table 6 Summary of teeth from BF03 snipped for length Dental wear tends to be more common and severe in archaeological populations than in modern societies, and is caused by a much coarser diet. The severity of the anterior wear on the teeth recovered was greater compared with that in the posterior teeth. This may be because the majority of posterior teeth found were third molars (wisdom teeth), which are subject to less use. Calculus (dental plaque) is commonly observed in archaeological populations whose dental hygiene was not as rigorous as it is today. Calculus mineralises and forms concretions on the tooth crowns, along the line of the gums. Calculus was observed in the majority of teeth (70%), and was slight throughout. The prevalence of calculus was similar to that observed in the skeletons from MG96, which affected 78.6% of teeth (Holst and Coughlan 2000, 81) and which is normal for medieval cemeteries. Caries lesions (cavities) were not very common before an increase in the availability of sugar in the 17th century (Roberts and Manchester 1995, 49). Diet in medieval England was largely sucrose-free for the majority of the populace. Only one cavity was observed in a right canine from BF03 (see Table 5; Plate 11), which was large and had destroyed most of the tooth crown. A total of 85.7% of individuals from MG96 suffered from caries, although only 8.9% of teeth were affected (Holst and Coughlan 2000, 80). Dental enamel hypoplasia (DEH) is the manifestation of lines, grooves or pits on the crown surface of the teeth which represent cessation of crown formation. The snipped DEH was observed in six teeth (28.6%), all of which were anterior teeth, with the exception of two premolars. In comparison, nine individuals (32.1%) from MG96 suffered from DEH, which affected 5.1% of the teeth. This prevalence corresponds with that observed at many medieval cemeteries. However, the prevalence of DEH in the teeth from BF03 was considerably higher. This could suggest that the individuals who were buried on the battlefield were of lower socio-demographic status, enduring a more stressful childhood than those individuals buried at Towton Hall, or that the teeth recovered were coincidentally high in DEH. Manifestations of dental injuries are commonly observed in skeletons from archaeological excavations. These can be the result of bumps and falls during childhood (the cause of most dental injuries today) (Andreasen 1981, 24), or alternatively, might be related to interpersonal violence or combat. A further explanation might be the usage of teeth in occupational tasks, such as hide preparation or mending of fishing nets. Three ante- /peri-mortem fractures were observed in the teeth recovered from BF03. These affected a first molar, a maxillary incisor and a further unidentifiable tooth. Infractions (chipping) of the anterior teeth are commonly observed, while molar infractions tend to be much less common, although ten of these were observed in soldiers from the MG96. The dental injuries were related either to head trauma or to clenching of the teeth in stressful battle situations (Hicks, pers. comm.). --- So these were not perfect teeth and there were caries "A total of 85.7% of individuals from MG96 suffered from caries". I've ordered the actual book. Should be here next week. Has anyone else ordered it yet? Johnnae On Jan 28, 2011, at 8:15 PM, Dan Schneider wrote: <<< True, but this isn't actually a report: it's closer to a museums "about us" page. It's simply an introduction to the main project and brief description of some of the subprojects, with very general mentions of some of the findings of those subprojects. The webpage also doesn't mention the proposed sequence of blows for shull 25; that info, and presumably the statement about the teeth would have come from either speaking with the osteologists, or reading of the actual osteo reports. Dan >>> Edited by Mark S. Harris p-dental-care-msg Page 11 of 12