Who Invented Toothpaste?
Toothpastes are a fairly modern invention and there is not a single person but a large number of minds behind it. Although there are speculations that the Egyptians used something similar to toothpaste around 4th AD, nothing is known with certainty. It is said that the Egyptians used a mixture of Iris flowers to produce their toothpastes.
There is a history of using twigs to clean teeth in India and China since as early as 500 BC, but ‘twigs’ can’t be specified as ‘toothpaste’ in the strict sense of the word. The modern toothpaste owes its existence to the Europeans. In 1824, a dentist named Peabody became the first man to add soap to toothpastes. This explains why the toothpastes form foam (nowadays the soap has been replaced by Sodium Lauryl Sulphate and Sodium Ricinoleate). Colgate began to mass produce toothpastes in 1873. These early toothpastes came in jars. Then came Dr. Washington Sheffield, who invented the collapsible tubes to carry the toothpaste and Colgate adopted these new tubes in 1896. The credit for the colored toothpastes goes to Leonard Lawrence Marraffino. He got his invention patented in 1957.
The currently available toothpastes use fluoride as an essential ingredient. Fluoride is poisonous if taken in excess so the toothpastes are not something to be swallowed.
Category: Inventions