Toothbrush

Natural bristle brushes were invented by the ancient Chinese who made toothbrushes with bristles from the necks of cold climate pigs.  French dentists were the first Europeans to promote the use of toothbrushes in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. William Addis of Clerkenwald, England, created the first mass-produced toothbrush. The first American to patent a toothbrush was H. N. Wadsworth and many American companies began to mass-produce toothbrushes after 1885. The Pro-phy-lac-tic brush made by the Florence Manufacturing Company of Massachusetts is one example of an early American-made toothbrush. The Florence Manufacturing Company was also the first to sell toothbrushes packaged in boxes. In 1938, DuPont manufactured the first nylon bristle toothbrushes.

Hard to believe, but most Americans did not brush their teeth until Army soldiers brought their enforced habits of tooth brushing back home after World War II. The first real electric toothbrush was developed in Switzerland and produced in 1939. In 1960, Squibb marketed the first American electrical toothbrush in the United States. It was called the Broxodent. General Electric introduced a rechargeable cordless toothbrush in 1961. Introduced in 1987, Interplak was the first rotary action electrical toothbrush for home use.