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White Smiles in the African Bush by Hans G. Schabel, PhD

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With a resonant hum, a distant ground hornbill, a turkey-sized bird, woke our safari camp in Tanzania’s Maasailand, welcoming the African morning and prompting early camp chores. Last night’s fire was still smoldering and was easily resuscitated. Soon water was boiling and the waft of coffee scented the dew-laden air. To ease the morning chill, I was sitting close to the fire, cupping a hot mug of coffee, Africa’s own drink, dark and amber as her people. While the coffee was alive with a white curl of steam, my mind was still in neutral. Then I watched one of my African companions dart over to a nearby small tree to break off a piece of branch, about as thick and long as a pencil. After stripping it of twigs and leaves, he shaved about an inch of bark from one end and started chewing that portion of the branch into a fibrous brush. Once soft, he vigorously rubbed his teeth and gums with this fibrous end. By now I was fully awake, as, being a forester, my curiosity was spiked. Because of its unassuming, bushy and snake-inviting habitat, this tree, called "mswaki" in Swahili (synonymous with toothbrush), I hadn’t before taken any notice of it. It was time to take a closer look.

Salvadora persica might have been new to me then, but it has been in use as the toothbrush tree for millennia throughout much of Africa, Saudi Arabia and India. Because the Prophet Mohammed promoted its virtues for oral hygiene, it is most enthusiastically employed in the Muslim world. This (semi-) evergreen bush or small tree, also called "miswak" in Arabic, favors drainages and seasonally flooded land in semi-arid, often saline country up to 5,000 feet in altitude. Its leaves are used as a mouthwash and for tooth and gum problems, and also serve as fodder for camels and other desert livestock. The wood is carved into "rungus" (head bashers), the fruit is edible and the flowers offer seasonally good bee pasture, making mswaki a multi-purpose tree. In Pakistan, where it is called "peelu," the trees are often found in graveyards.

Given the widespread use for toothbrushes in parts of the third world, mswaki has recently become the focus of research. This did indeed prove its benefits for oral hygiene, aside from other medical contributions, because it has antiurolithic, abrasive, antiseptic, astringent and detergent properties. Mswaki can be as efficient as regular toothbrushes, for reducing food deposits and plaque, due to integrated effects of mechanical cleaning and enhanced salivation, in combination with antimicrobial action. Chemical analyses identified the alkaloid salvadorine (which lowers fertility in mice), chlorides, sulfur, terpenes, vitamin C, glycosides, large amounts of fluoride and silica, as well as small amounts of tannins, saponins, flavonoids and sterols. As a result of benefits for oral hygiene, the World Health Organization (WHO) promotes the use of mswaki. In the Arab world it is now available in a modernized version as a vacuum-sealed product and as miswak toothpaste. It is also available on the Internet as "peelu" toothpaste.

Mswaki is not the only tree-derived natural toothbrush, but as a combined toothbrush/ toothpaste, it, more than its competitors, has stood the test of time and recently the scrutiny of science. It is the main secret behind the radiant smiles even in remote corners of the African bush, manifesting the qualities of this organicas- it-comes, readily available, cheap and recyclable instrument of oral hygiene.

Author's Bio
Dr. Hans Schabel was born and raised in Germany. He earned his BS and MS (1967 and 1969) in Forestry from the University of Freiburg in Germany’s Black Forest, with internships in Germany, Turkey and British Columbia. He earned his PhD (1973) in Forest Protection from Duke University. From 1973-2006 he worked as a professor of forestry and director of international resource management at the College of Natural Resources, University of Wisconsin- Stevens Point, interrupted by three years as professor of forest biology at Sokoine University in Morogoro, Tanzania, on behalf of the Norwegian International Development Agency.
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