江戸物語

The heavy rain pattering on the leaves masks all other sounds, putting Izo on edge. Is someone following? Are they footsteps? Or is it just the endless rain?

Thousands of fireflies light up the night near the rivers and swamps around Edo on warm summer nights. The cottage in Sendagaya, too, is beside the river, but it's hard finding joy in the fireflies this year.

I don't think I've posted these before. Tokugawa Ieyasu's reading glasses.

Sketch under the cut, if anyone's interested.

+ What were toothbrushes like in the Edo period?

Upper-class people (court aristocracy, priests, and warlords) began cleaning their teeth using tooth twigs during the Heian period.

This custom didn't spread among the common people until the middle of the Edo period when fusayouji (tufted toothpicks made from willow or spicebush) were invented. Fusayouji were made by smashing the end of a twig with a wooden hammer, and combing out the fibers with a needle brush.

Fusayouji and tooth powders became widespread after they started being sold at a toothpick shop on the grounds of Sensoji temple, where a beautiful girl attracted customers. Those customers included Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third Tokugawa shogun, who was said to have rested at the shop during his visit to the temple. Instant fame for the shop and a run on its tooth care products followed, after which other establishments began selling the same.

+ What are tooth powders?

Tooth powders were introduced to Japan from Korea at the beginning of the Edo period. Previously, people used salt or rice bran to clean their teeth.

Tooth powders quickly caught on among the young men of Edo who boasted of their white teeth and brushed diligently. It was easy to tell a true Edokko (Edo native) from a country bumpkin by whether or not he used tooth powder.

In the Bunka-Bunsei period (1804-1830), more than one hundred types of tooth powder were sold in Edo. They were made from boushuzuna (fine-grained sand) to which other substances, such as borneol, clove and cassia, were added for flavor and appearance. High-end tooth powder flavored with musk and colored pink was a specialty item of Edo.

+ How were toothaches treated in the Edo period?

Dentistry became its own specialty during the Heian period and focused on treating teeth and gums, as well as ailments of the tongue and throat. Dentists primarily treated people of means, such as court aristocrats and samurai.

During the Edo period, a second specialty, denturists, came into existence. They treated the common people and provided services such as treating toothaches and gum infections, pulling teeth, and making dentures.

Toothache remedies were made from clove, pepper, alum, and other substances, and were widely sold by denturists and street vendors.

+ How were teeth pulled during the Edo period?

Dentists and denturists of the Edo period used a variety of methods to pull teeth, including grasping the tooth with a plier-like tool or using a wooden bar tapped with a hammer.

An analgesic was commonly applied to the gums to numb them prior to dental work, but tooth extractions were said to have been performed with lightning speed, so the analgesic wasn't always necessary.

+ Were there dentures in the Edo period?

The oldest wooden dentures in Japan belonged to a nun (and former princess) called Hotokehime, who died in 1583 in Wakayama City.

Denturists as a profession came into existence during the Edo period, less than a century later. They made wooden dentures by taking an impression in beeswax and then carving the dentures from wood to fit that shape. Artisans who previously carved netsuke or Buddhist statues often became denturists.

The oldest set of Edo period dentures surviving today were made for Yagyu Matajuro Munefuyu, one of the Tokugawa's Edo sword instructors. (Readers of this tumblr may find the name familiar, he's Samon's brother.) Munefuyu's dentures were carved from boxwood and had teeth made from soapstone, making them look very realistic. (There's a picture here.)

+ Did all women blacken their teeth in the Edo period?

During the Edo period, tooth blackening was practiced almost exclusively by court aristocrats and married women. In 1868 and 1870, bans on teeth blackening were enacted targeting the nobility, but the custom continued until the Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken set the example.

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Information in this post adapted mostly from this page.

(Hokusai - Hokusai Manga Vol. 12, Men eating Noodles)

I recently came across the paper "Ancient DNA analysis of food remains in human dental calculus from the Edo period, Japan" by Sawafuji et al. (2020).

Researchers extracted DNA from dental calculus - that's the white stuff that forms on your teeth over time (and is generally removed if you go in for cleanings) - to study what people in the mid- to late-Edo period ate. To do this, they sampled calculus from 13 bodies dating to the 18th and 19th Century: 7 women and 6 men who lived in the city of Edo.

They found that they were unable to identify any type of animal taxon in the samples, so we don't know which fish or meats, if any, were eaten by the sampled individuals. So, not helpful in that regard.

However, they were able to identify the following:

We already know (and the paper points this out as well) that the diet of Edo's townspeople primarily consisted of rice and vegetables, occasionally (or regularly, depending on your means) accompanied by various types of fish.

From the list above, we can then identify a few more of the ingredients these specific people ate: rice, as their main staple, but also soba or udon (made from wheat and barley). An assortment of different vegetables, such as carrots, chestnuts, shiso, and garlic chives. And tea, naturally.

Interestingly, the researchers also found some non-food items, specifically plant matter from the Cupressacea (cypress) family, borneol and tobacco.

Tobacco is perhaps self-explanatory: many people in Edo smoked (pipes, specifically), and it would be fair to say that this left some residue in their dental calculus.

Plant matter from the cypress family is more interesting. There are two types of trees native to Japan from that family, the Japanese cedar and the Japanese arborvitae, the kind of smallish conifer that grows all over Japan. This plant matter is most likely to get into peoples' mouths by using chopsticks and toothpicks made from those trees, but also by using the resin as a painkiller for toothaches.

And the borneol stands out because it comes from a tree called the Borneo camphor, which isn't native to Japan and also won't grow in Japan if you tried. Meaning that the borneol would have to be imported, which it had been for a few hundred years, from China.

People examined in this study most likely came into contact with borneol as a flavoring in tooth powder. Tooth powder at the time was primarily fine sand with added flavoring to, I suppose, improve the experience and set apart different "brands" sold in stores.

You can learn more about tooth powders, tooth brushes, and treating toothaches in the Edo period on the website of the Kanagawa Prefectural Dental Association (in English).

Additionally, borneol was used in many traditional kampo medicines in both Japan and China. I'm not very well versed in kampo medicines, but according to this website, it's used to aid the digestive system by stimulating the production of gastric juices, treat bronchitis, coughs and colds, relieves pain and reduces swelling, and can be taken as a tonic to promote relaxation.

Teacher and student.

This Kaze Hikaru postcard set came with book #45 (the last book in the series). There's actually 12 cards in the set, but tumblr limits posts to only 10.

I finished the modern!AU image from this request and will now return you to your regularly scheduled Edo period programming.