The toothbrush is an oral hygiene tool used to clean the teeth, gums, tongue and cheeks. The tooth brush is generally composed of two parts; the head which houses the bristles and in some it may house a tongue cleaner, and the handle which allows gripping and handling which allows various movements to be possible. The toothbrush head consist of tightly grouped bristles which are housed inside the head. The bristles can be made of natural fibers such as animal fibers from pigs, horses and wild boars. Another material used for tooth brush bristles are synthetic fibers such as nylon and plastic polymers.
In ancient times, toothbrush bristles are generally made out of natural fibers which are available locally. Materials such as tree twigs, bird feathers, and animal hair mounted on tree branches and animal bones were the first crude tooth brushes. Various cultures around the world since ancient times have developed a sort of crude oral hygiene. In China, non-bristled toothbrushes were used during the Tang dynasty. In China, horse tail hair were mounted on ox-bone handle and used to clean teeth. Indigenous cultures were known to use tree bristles and leaves to clean their teeth.
Travel and trade has introduced tooth brushes from China to Europe during the 17th century consisting of a horse tail or boar hair bristle. China was the first known country to mass produce tooth brushes to be imported to other countries. In Europe, the first known mass produced toothbrush was made during the 1700s, the brush had a simple design; a small piece of bone or wood was drilled with small holes and the bristles were tied to the brush head. By 1800s the tooth brush were mass produced in various countries.
The use of animal hair for brush was not ideal because animal hair retains bacteria, it does not dry well and can easily fall off the from the toothbrush head. Soon synthetic fibers were introduced to improve the quality of the toothbrush. Synthetic fibers such as nylon were first used, and celluloid as handle instead of animal bones. The first synthetic fiber tooth brush was on sale in 1930s. Soon different models of toothbrush were introduced including the electric tooth brush.
Modern toothbrush differs from the first mass produced tooth brush because it has it has an angled head which increases the cleaning effect of the brush, bristles are more concentrated on special locations to clean the tooth more thoroughly and outer bristles are designed to be longer and softer in order to clean more effectively in between teeth.
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