Mouthwashes: From Urine to Listerine

Mouthwashes to freshen breath have been around for centuries and were used by many ancient societies such as the Egyptians, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans.

The Chinese, for instance, are believed to have produced the first mouthwashes -- sometime around 2700 BC -- to treat gum disease, a cause of bad breath. The Egyptians rinsed their mouths with water and honey as well as cumin, ocher, frankincense, and goose fat. The Greeks, meanwhile, formulated a concoction consisting of boiled olive tree leaves, milk, pickled olive juice, gum myrrh with wine and oil, pomegranate peelings, nutgalls, and vinegar.

Ancient societies used other ingredients for their mouthwashes, including pleasant things like fruit, honey, or dried flowers to not-so-pleasant things such as ground lizard, minced mice, or even urine. You read that right -- urine! The Romans actually gargled with urine to combat bad breath. And you thought Listerine tasted bad! But since the Romans thought their own urine lacked sufficient oomph, they shipped in from Portugal what they believed was a stronger, more potent urine.

Interestingly enough, the Romans weren't the only ones using urine to freshen breath. Urine (which contains ammonia) was an active ingredient in toothpastes and mouthwashes until the 18th century. As you may well guess, all of these various ingredients were largely ineffective and in many cases were harmful to the enamel coating on teeth.

Now fast forward to our present-day age. In the movie, "Gone With The Wind," Scarlett O'Hara tries to disguise the smell of alcohol on her breath by gargling with cologne. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction because there are many stories of movie and theater stars in the early 20th century also trying to freshen their breath with perfume.

Years before Listerine became the number one washwash in America, it was used to clean floors, cure gonorrhea, and to disinfect instruments during surgeries.

If you're out shopping for a contemporary mouthwash, be sure to read the labels of the various brands. You want to avoid any that contain sugar or alcohol -- both of which actually contribute to bad breath. Sugar not only leads to tooth decay, but can feed the oral bacteria in your mouth that produces bad breath. Alcohol, meanwhile, can dry out the mouth, creating an ideal environment for odor-causing bacteria.

We'll have more on mouthwashes and their role in combating bad breath in future posts to this blog. As always, your comments and questions are invited.