“Pharmakos” tooth powder packaging

Description

The Pharmakos cardboard box was a packaging for storing tooth powder. Oral hygiene was known even to the oldest of civilisations. Teeth were cleaned using substances such as tree bark, sticks, feathers, porcupine spines, and a mixture of pepper, salt, herbs, ash, and eggshells. Mass production of toothbrushes inspired pharmacists to prepare tooth powders and toothpastes. At the turn of the 19th and 20th c., pharmacies began to mass produce preparations made to their own recipes. It is difficult to establish the composition of the powder which the presented package contained. An example recipe follows, and could still be made nowadays: calcium carbonicum 400.0 g, magnesium carbonicum 30.0 g, oleum Menthae piperitae 2.5 g. This was the composition of the Pulveres Dentifricii tooth powder, which was still used in the 1950s. Manufacturer: Laboratorium Farmaceutyczno-Kosmetyczne „Pharmakos”, Krakow Inv. No.: MIM1599/IX-174 Model prepared on the basis of photogrammetric measurements Licence: CC BY-NC-SA