Tooth powders

Different recipes for products meant to clean and whiten the teeth and to freshen the breath are known ever since Classical Antiquity. The Greeks and the Romans often used dentifrices (tooth powders) made of burnt and finely crushed bones and shells, sometimes mixed with honey and various astringent substances (such as myrrh).

Pharmacists prepared such products from the end of the Middle Ages and until the beginning of the twentieth. The recipes are mentioned in the different specialized works and the products are a constant presence in the Materia medica.

Dentifrices are defined as mechanical cleaning agents, usually powders, for the cleaning of teeth, usually made of the following main ingredients:

• Pumex - pumice stone
• Bolus Armeniaca - red clay
• chalk
• Ossae Sepiae - cuttlefish bone
• Myrrha - myrrh
• Iridis Florentinae Radix - Iris bulb
• Catechu - acacia extract
• Sanguis Draconis - the resin of certain wild palm trees

Some of the ingredients were used for their roughness, others for their astringent properties (addressing certain gum issues), while yet other for their nice smell, aimed at freshening one's breath. These types of ingredients had to be carefully balanced, so as to clean efficiently but not affect the enamel.

The History of Pharmacy Collection in Cuj-Napoca includes a series of containers for dentifrices, made of wood, glass and porcelain. Three of the items are wooden apothecary jars used during the nineteenth century in a pharmacy from Baia Mare, with painted signatures that indicate the type of product contained: "Pulv(eris) Dentifr(icium) Alb(um) and "Pulv. Dentif. Rub(rum)" thus differentiate between red and white tooth powders. "Pulv. Dentif' "Sipos""  probably refers to a special recipe, bearing the name of its inventor. Another apothecary jar, made of milky glass, dated to the nineteenth century, has the signature "Pulv. Dentif. Huf." and is part of the old Orient collection.

Red dentifrice preserved in one of the apothecary jars

Odontine container preserving the original tooth paste

The last two items are rectangular cases for tooth powder produced in Paris. One of them is made of porcelain, was obtained from the "Crown" Pharmacy in Iasi and the markings on the lid provide a series of clarifications. "Odontine" was a recipe launched in 1860 by chemist J. Pelletier, member of the French Academy of Medicine, at the suggestion of a dentist-surgeon colleague. The composition of this tooth paste was aimed at counteracting oral acidity, as a way to prevent the formation of cavities. The second box, made of milky glass, produced by the Bigaud company in Paris contained another tooth paste. The lid is marked "Pate dentifrice Bigaud Paris". The item is part of the old Orient Collection, thus not much is known on where it was sold in Transylvania. 

19th-century Odontine commercial (French)

Lapis pumicis (pumice stone)

Pumice stone is one of the natural ingredients employed by the apothecaries and doctors of old. Pumex or Lapis Pumicis is a porous volcanic rock with low density and light color. It was sometimes called, erroneously, Sea foam (in fact sepiolite). Basaltic scoria is another vitreous volcanic stone, dark in color, denser and with larger vesicles, used more rarely in apothecary context.

Lapis pumicis

Scoria

Pumice powder was used as ingredient (mechanical abrasive cleaning agent) in tooth powders (dentifrices), in medicine against ulcers (of the skin and cornea) and as scar removal. The entire stone was sometimes employed by pharmacists as a kind of file, to scrape other materials. Together with other ingredients (antimony, distilled water, walnut shells etc.) it was boiled into concoctions for diet (Decoctum Lusitanicum) or urinary problems.

The History of Pharmacy Collection in Cluj presents the ingredient in its FOCUS display for the month of October 2016. The tematic display includes actual pumice and scoria stones and one 19th-century wooden jar from the “Unicorn” Pharmacy in Cluj, with the signature Pulv. Pumicis Lap. As the Latin abbreviated inscription indicates, the jar was used for the storage of powdered pumice stone. Another relevant objects in the collection is a valuable 17th century closet from the Officina, once used in the “Black Eagle” Pharmacy in Sibiu. One of its drawers of the  is also inscribed Lap. Pumicis. (pumice stone). More recent still, a similar inscription - Pulv. Lap. Pumic. - is to be found on a 20th century closet from the Hintz Pharmacy which houses the museum.

Apothecary uses of cuttlefish bone (OSSAE SEPIAE)

This is the internal shell of the mollusk of the Sepiidae family, a hard but brittle structure that helps the cuttlefish navigate (used for buoyancy control). Over time, cuttlefish bones had several uses: goldsmiths used them to cast items made of precious metal (as the bone is temperature resistant but can be carved easily) or in the making of polishing powder. It was also an old pharmaceutical ingredient, employed both in the Mediterranean and in Asia, in Chinese medicine. The Romans also used cuttlefish bones for cosmetic treatments, believing that the ashes obtained from burning the bone removed freckles and other skin imperfections.

Powdered cuttlefish bone was a common ingredient of tooth powders and cleaning solutions, employed as an abrasive, mechanical agent. Most modern dentifrices contained cuttlefish bone powder. It was sometimes used as calcium supplement, as absorbent and coagulant (to stop bleeding), or as antacid.

The History of Pharmacy Collection in Cluj-Napoca includes two pharmaceutical jars, both dated to the nineteenth century, for cuttlefish bone powder. The first is a wooden jar with the painted signature PULV. OSSIUM SEPIAE, once used in a pharmacy from Baia Mare, while the second is a glass vial with polished stopper, from the old St. George’s Pharmacy in Cluj – where the museum is now hosted – with the signature PULV. OSSAE SEPIAE.

See the Romanian version HERE.