New Officers at the National Flossing Council

This is an exciting time for the National Flossing Council because we have several new superb officers! 

They will continue a tradition we share with other online organizations, including Facebook, Zynga and Google - working for a single digit salary.

Long time supporter of the NFC, Leanne Mitchell in Melbourne, AU (Leanne@flossing.org) is now Vice President of International Communications & Media.

In her past efforts, Leanne linked the NFC with the funny, high concept, sci-fi video, Dentally Disturbed

Mike Letschin is now Chief Social Media Officer. Mike has begun moving the NFC into the twitterverse. Mike can be contacted by email, Marketing@flossing.org, or on twitter @doyoufloss

Noah Jacobson (Noah@flossing.org) is now National Flossing Council Counsel.

Noah has provided counsel on a number of past projects and captured our famed pictures of a wild Thai monkey flossing.

 

Dr. Chip Tartaroff, Chief Dental Officer and Spokesperson of the NFC, DrT@flossing.org, can now also be reached on twitter @drctartaroff

Oldest Printed Reference to Dental Floss (1820)

Here's a picture of a wild monkey in Thailand flossing.  There are a lot of modern pictures and video of primates flossing and there are a lot of ancient human skulls with grooves between their teeth that suggest people have been flossing for a long time (more on that in a future post).

Dental historians, such as Drs Matthew Sanoudos and Arden Christen of  Indiana University, have detailed the writings of Levi Spear Parmly, who suggested the use of waxed silk to clean between teeth in the early 1800s (1). Parmly's writings seem to be the oldest printed references to dental floss.

You can read the 3 lectures Parmly gave in New York City in 1820 with this online link (and save the $1.50 (now $20) it would have cost you for admission).

Parmly didn't go into the details of flossing in the lectures.  Here's the key page that describes floss from the end of the third lecture.

References

1. Sanoudos M, Christen AG. Levi Spear Parmly: the apostle of dental hygiene. J Hist Dent. 1999 Mar;47(1):3-6.

Even Apes Understand Flossing! - Buy one, Spread the Word.

I don't usually "plug" commercial products - not that there's anything wrong with that, if done upfront - but, anyway, Here's where you can buy postcards or framed prints of this picture; this is Art!

Rather than copy the picture and post it here, I suggest clicking the link.  No charge for that. 
I'm buying one sometime soon.

Wild Thai Monkey Flossing!

Our travelling correspondent, Noah J, of Washington, DC, spotted this wild monkey in Thailand.  Obviously this monkey loved to floss!

Good flossing form!

Working on a particular tooth!

Looks like me when I'm alone flossing.

Where the string came from isn't known, but it looks like the monkey would have a preference for mint floss.
Monkeys seem to be natural born flossers.  How primal is that?
There are several videos of monkeys flossing on youtube.  You can read more about monkeys teaching their babies to floss, by clicking this BBC link, and read more on the NFC Web Site.