Toothbrush is now 510 years old

Dubai: The lowly toothbrush celebrated its 510th or 4,000th birthday on Thursday, depending on which historian you talk to.

Although the common toothbrush has existed for 70 years, its precursor with a bamboo handle and boar-hair bristles was invented in China on June 26, 1498, according to the US Library of Congress.

But millennia before, a form of toothbrush has been cleaning the people's teeth and is still in use in some parts of the world: the chew stick, commonly known in the Arab world as the miswak or siwak.

Dr Carsten Froelich, orthodontist at Mahboubi Poly Dental Clinic, told Gulf News the stick could be better because it showed a lower rate of tooth decay.