How did cowboys brush their teeth?
Byron Lloyd
Snellville, Georgia
Tools to clean teeth have been around since prehistoric times. The forerunner to the toothbrush was a “chew stick”—a twig with a frayed tip on one end that acted as a brush.
The Chinese invented the first toothbrush, in 1498, using hog or horsehair bristle, but the first U.S. patent for this toothbrush didn’t come until 1857; it wasn’t mass-produced until 1885. Americans didn’t routinely brush their teeth un
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