[Herbalist] tooth powder recipe

[Gaylin Walli]

>Someone once told me that baking soda was a 19th century invention.
>But one period recipe for tooth cleaner is to char rosemary and use the
>ashes to scrub one's teeth-- it's in Banckes' Herbal, I believe.

There are recipes for tooth powders in the Nostradamus writings too
and in a few other places (Porta's Natural Magick? I'm precaffeine and
haven't looked). There seems to be a pretty even split between those
that refer to powders to whiten the teeth and those that are intended
to "fix" the teeth, keeping them in the wearer's head if they're rotting.
Some of them are stone and gem based (cf. Nostradamus and his use
of rocks and pearls), likely on the belief that the hardness and white
color of the minerals and gems were going to affect the teeth.

Iasmin