Dental Care?

[Rhyden]

I'm curious. I've seen some Zalanthans RP having completely disgusting yellow and black teeth but I've seen some show pearly whites.

Do Zalanthans know how to keep their teeth clean? Do they care?

Would Nobles/Templars generally have better teeth than the commoners if any sort of dental care process is actually known?

I was thinking maybe salt crystals could help to get rid of bacteria or something. Maybe even possibly sand?

[Barzalene]

Sand and salt would be my best guesses
Or the local vivaduan or krathi (ouch!)

[Kennath]

Urine (in the past) was the first form of dental care.

[Dresan]

Charcoal or coal. Break a piece grind it to powder and rub your teeth with it.  Saw someone do it once on the discovery channel. Its icly cheap too, so are mint leaves.

A brewer could probably mix together a crude grainy paste too, with added mint leaves for a fresh mouth. Probably some mixed in spice for nobles, templars and the really rich.

I would think a rinther wouldn't care or a really poor commoner or even a byner. However if your working with merchants or with nobles in a house, oreven somoene in the wilds (who need their teeth to chew tough meat) they would probably take some measure to maintain their teeth.

So yeah agreeing with Barzalene at the very least sand and/or salts.

[Barzalene]

Here's the thing. I think it's cool when people rp that their teeth are imperfect... but it's not an rp I want to force on people. If people log in and play and have fun and imagine their pc's with nice teeth and it makes them happy, I find I can live with that.

[Lazloth]

Not just toothpaste (earliest reference was 4AD - salt/pepper/mint like you folks have already outlined), but dental care is an old terran science.

In 2001 archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh, Pakistan, made the discovery that the people of Indus Valley Civilization, even from the early Harappan periods (c. 3300 BC), had knowledge of medicine and dentistry. The physical anthropologist that carried out the examinations, Professor Andrea Cucina from the University of Missouri-Columbia, made the discovery when he was cleaning the teeth from one of the men. Later research in the same area found evidence of teeth having been drilled, dating back nine thousand years.
Some information contained in the Edwin Smith Papyrus dates as early as 3000 BC and includes the treatment of several dental ailments. Hammurabi's Code contains some references to dental procedures and fees. The Ebers papyrus also discusses similar treatments. Examining the remains of some ancient Egyptians and Greco-Romans reveal early attempts at dental prosthetics and surgery.

I don't think it's inconceivable that such exists on Zalanthas.  Hell, with soap recipes already ingame, don't see why we don't submit some toothpastes and brushes.

[Renaissance]

Chewing the end of a stick and scrubbing your teeth with it, or wiping them with a bit of cloth, could also be IC'ly feasible.

[LauraMars]

I'm sure you all have heard the post-apocalyptic theories already, but let's remind ourselves that this world is, again, theoretically, existing in the far future, not the far past.  Who knows what solutions for cleanliness may have carried over from the days of suburbs and hot dogs?  I say nay to tooth decay.  I also say yay to tooth decay, because rotting yellow teeth are fun...to write about.

However, I don't know about sand as a cleaning agent.  I've read archeologist reports of Egyptians whose teeth were ground away to the roots and pitted because sand blew into all their flour and bread.

Sink your 21st century teeth into a few of these:

http://library.thinkquest.org/J002046F/food.htm
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/bread.htm
http://www.egyptologyonline.com/the_dentist.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/health_03.shtml

I'm guessing sand and teeth = not a great mix.

[InsertCleverNameHere]

Reminds me of something I heard.. who knows where, and I'm too lazy to fact check. That at some point (I'm thinking, declaration of independance era), people would use ground brick powder (possibly made into a paste, I forget) for scrubbing their teeth, but mostly what it did was wear away the enamel. So sand may be just as bad, or nearly, for the teeth.

[Marauder Moe]

Here's my take on it: yes, everyone (including nobles) probably has nasty, yellowed, crooked teeth.  The thing is, though, emotes and descriptions are put against the viewpoint of the players where such things are unsightly by modern standards.  When you go out of your way to describe icky teeth, BO, and other common and normal (for Zalanthas) nastiness, other people react (conciously or unconciously) as though your character is nasty by game standards as well, even if he/she isn't.

So while I agree that people in Zalanthas are going to be pretty disgusting, I don't generally go out of my way to emote it or write it into my descriptions so that people will treat my characters normally.

[Note: I do think that characters described as having perfect, white teeth are out of place, though.  Especially commoners.]

[Malken]

Nostradamus' recipe for white teeth..

Take three drachms each of crystal, flint, white marble, glass and calcined rock salt, two drachms each of calcined cuttlefish bone and small sea-snail shells, half a portion each of pearls and fragments of gemstones, two drachms of the small white stones which are to be found in running water, a scruple of amber and twenty-two grains of musk.  Mix them well together and grind them into the finest powder on a marble slab. Rub the teeth with it frequently and, if the gums have receded, paint a little rose honey on them. The flesh will grow back in a few days and the teeth will be perfectly white.

Saw that on TV tonight. Adapt it to Zalanthas, can't be too hard if you can afford the ingredients. Obviously Kadius should be the dental care House as well

[Nao]

sand would only wear stuff off.... anyone seen pirates of the caribean? *grin*

I agree with Malifaxis say that most people will eventually have very bad, yellow teeth, but maybe some not at a young age. Sugar doesn't seem to be very common and even if you never brush your teeth, they might turn a bit yellow but they won't rot immediately.
Some tribal people on earth have surprisingly good teeth until they become older even with a complete lack of dental care.

Dental care in egypt was mostly tooth repair, probably because bad teeth tend to hurt a lot and you can't chew.

Something like toothbrushes in game would seriously bother me, unless they were something really exotic - almost worse than peopel deciding to shave their legs (that didn't come up anytime befor ethe 20th century and expensive nylons - wtf..?)

[FightClub]

In a society so survival oriented, I believe teeth would be on the upper end of care.  Back in caveman times, once you lost your teeth you died, I see no difference here, not many people have the luxury of always eating stew, or always having their food chewed for them.  I honestly think people would be well aware of this.  Body odor, things like that aren't necessarily lethal, I doubt they would be a concern as has been showed.  Take a look at the average lifespan of humans in Zanthalas, is it early twenties and thirties? Maybe their teeth are rotting out, forties, fifties -- well then obviously they've a dental plan.

[veryalien]

tooth decay is caused by bacteria you acquire early in life afaik. who is to say the same bacteria from modern day earth exists in zalanthas? heck most people worry more about poison than any kind of illness.

[Yokunama]

tooth decay is caused by bacteria you acquire early in life afaik. who is to say the same bacteria from modern day earth exists in zalanthas? heck most people worry more about poison than any kind of illness.

Whos to say tooth decay isn't cause by something else in Zalanthas?
Whos to say an even worse forms of the same bacteria exists in Zalanthas?

[WarriorPoet]

Oh, oh.... There is nothing to say that a low-tech society will have rotten teeth or bad oral hygiene. The wear of sand on your chompers aside, a healthy diet and the occasional scraping will keep you in good stead with the Tooth Fairy.

There is a book around here somewhere, written by a man in the early 19th century, who travelled among a number of different tribes of American Indians. There is a section devoted to the fact that he was amazed at the pearly white smiles they sported, and the fact that tooth decay or gum disease was a rarity, in comparison to whites. I could find the title and author, if anyone would like...

I think it was George Curtis.

And since there are no preservatives in the food, the teeth wouldn't be deteriorated by them. Cave men had good teeth, if they had any. But junk just got into the gums and they rotted away.

-WP

[Angela Christine]

I see no problem at all with PCs under 30 that appear to have "perfect" teeth.  Tooth decay takes time.  Even for older PCs, good teeth aren't insanely improbable.  As others have mentioned, many cultures discovered the benefits of basic dental care, even without fluoride toothpaste.


If all else fails you can always fall back on dental mutations.  Since having teeth is likely to be an advantage over not having teeth, and something about the Known World causes visible mutations to be very common, normal evolution could easily have encouraged pro-teeth mutations to be maintained in the population.

- Most humans have two sets of teeth, baby teeth and adult teeth.  Some people have a third set of teeth, their adult teeth are pushed out and replaced by a third set.  Then there are wisdom teeth, which commonly come in around age 20.  A mutation could keep new teeth growing in throughout the lifespan, like with sharks.  If each tooth was exposed for 10 years, tooth decay and discolouration might not have time to be a serious factor.

-  Rabbits and rodents don't grow replacement teeth, instead their front teeth keep growing for their entire lives.  They need to gnaw with those teeth to keep them worn down.  In captivity the teeth are sometimes filed or clipped to keep them from over-growing if they aren't being worn down naturally.  If it's good enough for rodents, it's good enough for primates, and the right mutation can make it happen.

-  Body chemistry mutations.  This is the least weird option, for people who want strong teeth without strange side effects.  Saliva contains various proteins, catalysts, sugars, and other junk besides water.  What your body excretes into your saliva is partly genetic, we don't all have the same saliva.  The make up of your saliva affects the bacteria that live in your mouth, and can either encourage or inhibit the bacteria that encourage tooth decay.  (This is part of the reason why two people with similar diets and dental care regimens can have quite different levels of tooth decay).  This sort of mutation probably wouldn't affect staining, your teeth would still get yellow or brown as you age depending on what you chew, but it could prevent or delay teeth becoming rotten.

[Yokunama]

- Most humans have two sets of teeth, baby teeth and adult teeth.  Some people have a third set of teeth, their adult teeth are pushed out and replaced by a third set.  Then there are wisdom teeth, which commonly come in around age 20.  A mutation could keep new teeth growing in throughout the lifespan, like with sharks.  If each tooth was exposed for 10 years, tooth decay and discolouration might not have time to be a serious factor.

Some people have extra teeth too.

[Angela Christine]

Woo!  I'm a thread necromancer!  Can world domination be far behind?


Anyway, I found a good picture of a stick toothbrush that has been used in the middle east for over a thousand years.  Erm, not this particular one, but this kind.  


http://www.islam.tc/Miswaak/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miswak


Apparently Colgate didn't invent oral hygiene.  Who knew?

[Apocalyptic_Cow]

You guys might also think this is cool, stumbled over it the other day in a Forster novel: Paan.

Paan is chewed as a palate cleanser and a breath freshener.

It's sort of a snack/cultural tradition. A neat idea for something on Zalanthas.

[HoD]

I would think that since alot of food...dare I say all? Is fresh and non-processed that it would be easy to keep teeth white?