*** Youtube/Video thread ***

This Guy's videos are great:

Angry security guards at a posh hotel (comment section is slightly amusing too with some commentators not getting that the start with the three Indians telling them to swim is obviously staged)

India/Pakistan border closing ceremony, this looks crazy, would be fun to go and watch one day:

 
Minusorange said:
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I've also seen references to wood ash being used as a basis for tooth powder in medieval England. All you really need is a mild abrasive that's safe to have in your mouth and to swallow small amounts of. Wood ash would fit the bill and it would be very easily available for free to almost everyone. There were other flavourings available. As he mentions, cloves were not cheap. Not very expensive, but not cheap. There were other plants used for flavouring that were available much more cheaply and were known at the time to be safe to have in your mouth because people cooked with them. Parsley, for example, was widely thought to be good for cleaning your mouth and freshening your breath. Mint, of course. Very easy to grow and a strong taste most people find pleasant. Stuff that a typical person would either be growing by their house or could at least fairly conveniently gather in the wild. The same plants could be used as breath fresheners.

I think it's also worth noting that in the context of oral hygiene medieval English people had a far better diet than modern English people because they ate far less sugar. Less effective toothbrushes and less effective toothpaste would have been fine. There's good evidence that average oral hygeine was better then than it is now.

Even without the widespread belief that diseases could be caused by bad smells, medieval people would have taken care of their teeth. It's not like there was a dentist in every village and even if there had been, dentistry in medieval England was hardly impressive and prevention was a far better option.

Rubbing teeth with strips of cloth (with or without tooth cleaning powder) was also used, although I think that was renaissance England rather tham medieval.

Overall, the medieval period (all of it) was less crap than it's often made out to be. Unless there was famine, plague, war or some combination of those things, it wasn't horrible. I wouldn't care to swap, but it wasn't all filthy, stinking people in filthy, stinking brown clothes living in squalid huts. Brown clothing would have cost extra, anyway. The cheapest clothing would have been grey.
 
Angilion said:
It's not like there was a dentist in every village and even if there had been, dentistry in medieval England was hardly impressive and prevention was a far better option.
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Even when you did need a dentist, medieval people were a lot more travelled than you might expect. Even abroad thanks to the crusades. And there were also travelling fairs that might have a dentist with them.

Of course medieval dentists were very different today - pricey and quite gleeful about ripping out your teeth and leaving you in agony...

 
h4rm0ny said:
Even when you did need a dentist, medieval people were a lot more travelled than you might expect. Even abroad thanks to the crusades.
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Some of them, yes, but not usually at will unless they were wealthy. For example, a sailor on a merchant's trading ship might be well travelled, even abroad (there was a lot of international trade), but they wouldn't be travelling where they chose when they chose. Although they might well get some time spare in a trading port, which would probably be at least a fair sized town (by the standards of the time, when a few thousand people was a big city) with a dentist.

The average person could probably spare a couple of days to travel to and from the nearest town with a dentist and a serf would probably be allowed to leave their lord's manor for it. An average person, free or serf, might even live close enough to walk there, get treated and walk back in a day. But even so, it would still be true that "dentistry in medieval England was hardly impressive and prevention was a far better option."

And there were also travelling fairs that might have a dentist with them.
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True, but how often would one be stopping at or near your village?

Of course medieval dentists were very different today - pricey and quite gleeful about ripping out your teeth and leaving you in agony...
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Maybe, although it would be better for their business to not do so. A dentist who could pull teeth efficiently and with as little pain as possible could charge more and would probably get more work too. People tend to prefer to be good at their trade, anyway. But medical knowledge in medieval England (or anywhere else at the time) was quite limited. There would be a risk of infection and treatments to prevent or treat it were of limited effectiveness. Also, as you say, cost was a factor. Pay for the dentist, probably pay for somewhere to stay overnight, probably pay for some sort of aftercare product that you hope will prevent infection (and might - some plants do have antibacterial properties)...it was coin you would probably prefer to spend on something else (assuming you had they money). Oh, and pay for the booze to get drunk enough to dull the pain :) There might be other forms of painkiller available, but alcohol would probably be cheaper and safer.

I think prevention was definitely a better option. Pass the hazel twigs, please :)
 
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