Page 93 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK

From a Greek philosopher’s alarm clock to
bizarre Tudor toothbrushes, Greg Jenner
PLATO explores the history of our morning routine

Put your pants Dress to Spice on your Ask your
5 6 7 8
on (if you’re impress the cornflakes? slave to brush
wearing any) fashion police Strangely, our humble bowl your teeth
of cornflakes first arrived in
When Howard Carter discov- Body lice thrive in the folds of the 1890s as a treatment for People have been treating
ered Tutankhamun’s tomb in clothing, and are thought to patients with mental illness toothache for millennia, with
1922, among the glorious have branched off from their who masturbated too much. evidence of dental drilling in
golden treasures were also near relatives, head lice, Dr John Harvey Kellogg Pakistan dating back 9,000
145 pairs of underpants. The thousands of years ago as a believed that the lack of sugar years. But avoiding surgery
linen loincloth (shenti) was result of people adopting and spice would reduce a has always been preferable,
standard underwear of the fabric clothing. We often person’s sex drive. It was his so tooth brushing with a frayed
time, regardless of class or depict Stone Age people in brother, Will, who sprinkled twig was part of the morning
wealth, but its origins seem animal furs, but they also wove the sugar back on top and routine for everyone from the
even older. The mummified flax on primitive looms and made a fortune out of the medieval residents of India
corpse of Ötzi the Iceman, used needle and thread to Kellogg’s brand. to the Elizabethans.
Of course, every bowl of
who was murdered in the make clothes fit more snugly. cereal needs a splash of milk, to brush their teeth for them,
Roman aristocrats had slaves
MARY EVANS/BRIDGEMAN/DREAMSTIME/WELLCOME IMAGES women went pantless until police’ have been in operation animals. Indeed, the mutated at the time was human urine
Tyrolean Alps 5,300 years
In the Ice Age, well-insulated
but this was only possible after
clothes were key to survival.
ago, revealed he sported
applying powdered antler horn
a goatskin loincloth.
to brighten the enamel. Oddly,
Today, fashion is more about
the Neolithic farming revolution
looking good, but the ‘fashion
Most European men and
saw humans domesticate
the best available mouthwash
gene that allows most of us to
for longer than you might think.
the mid-19th century, with
imported from Portugal.
drink cow’s milk without
In the Middle Ages there were
The Chinese invented the
ladies wearing long smocks
suffering painful flatulence is
under their dresses and men
modern toothbrush, but it
laws proscribing certain
colours and designs, and
never reached Europe, so the
only 6,000 years old, and the
merely tucking their long
Edward IV demanded that
shirts between their legs.
majority of the world’s
reinvention is credited to
population don’t have it.
However, the philosopher
William Addis who, in 1780,
purple, gold and silver fabrics
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832)
be limited to royalty. You had
inserted horsehair into a pig
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bone. But even Addis didn’t
was surprisingly found to
to be of knightly class to get
away with velvet.
have been wearing boxer
people were sporting under-
In 17th-century Japan, a rule
day – that advice came from
shorts when his preserved
wear, as this image from the
preventing merchants from
US army hygiene experiments
corpse was examined by
1920 suggests; a man covered
wearing ornate robes led some
modern conservators.
in the Second World War.
in the traditional Japanese
to have the designs tattooed on By the 20th century, most recommend brushing twice a
irezumi tattoo in c1880; Dr
their skin. This art of irezumi is John Harvey Kellogg chose Greg Jenner has been the
still so highly regarded in Japan not to use sugar in his historical consultant for every
that people have been paid to cornflakes recipe in a bid to
bequeath their flayed skin to reduce patients’ sex drive; an series of the BBC’s multi-award-
museums upon their death. 1810 coloured engraving winning Horrible Histories series
shows men who probably
didn’t own a toothbrush DISCOVER MORE
BOOK
A Million Years in a Day:
A Curious History of Every-
day Life by Greg Jenner
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016)
The Story of Science & Technology 93