Electric Toothbrush - History

History

The first successful electric toothbrush, the Broxodent, was conceived in Switzerland in 1954 by Dr. Philippe-Guy Woog. Woog's electric toothbrushes were originally manufactured in Switzerland (later in France) for Broxo S.A. The first clinical study showing its superiority over manual brushing was published by Pr. Arthur Jean Held in Geneva in 1956. Electric toothbrushes were initially created for patients with limited motor skills, as well as orthodontic patients (such as those with braces). Claims have been made that electric toothbrushes are more effective than manual ones as they are less dependent upon patients brushing correctly.

The Broxo Electric Toothbrush was introduced in the USA by E. R. Squibb and Sons Pharmaceuticals at the centennial of the American Dental Association in 1959. After introduction, it was marketed in the USA by Squibb under the names Broxo-Dent or Broxodent. In the 1980s Squibb transferred distribution of the Broxodent line to the Somerset Labs division of Bristol Myers/Squibb.

While the Broxodent may have been the first electric toothbrush and a superior product, the electric toothbrush that caught the public's attention in USA was the General Electric Automatic Toothbrush introduced in the early 1960s. Similar to the Broxodent in function, it differed in that it was cordless with rechargeable NiCad batteries, while the Broxodent plugged into a standard wall outlet and run on AC line voltage.

This difference in power source was significant for several reasons. The GE toothbrush, although portable, was rather bulky, about the size of a two-D-cell flashlight handle. NiCad batteries of this period left much to be desired: they suffered from memory and lazy battery effects. The GE Automatic Toothbrush came with a charging stand which held the hand piece upright; most units were kept in the charger which is not the best way to get maximum service life from a NiCad battery. Early NiCad batteries did not hold much energy, and it was not uncommon for the GE Automatic toothbrush to run out of power before brushing was complete, particularly if several people used the same battery-holding handle (with separate brushes) without recharging. Finally, early NiCad batteries tended to have a short lifespan. The batteries were sealed inside the GE device, and the whole unit had to be discarded when the batteries failed. The purchase price of each GE Automatic Toothbrush was lower than a Broxodent. The GE Automatic Toothbrush sold well.

The Broxodent hand piece was slim and remarkably compact, even by today's standards. Since it was powered by AC line voltage, it never ran out of power, although it could grow warm after extended use. Early Broxodent models came with a straight power cord, later units with a coiled cord. All Broxodent cords had a small molded strain relief where the cord entered the hand piece, but this was still the likeliest place for a cord to fail. Since the Broxodent hand pieces were sealed, a cord failure was not repairable and the expensive toothbrush had to be discarded. That said, it was not unusual for a Broxodent toothbrush to last for 20 years or longer; failures were rare.

The use of an AC line voltage appliance in a bathroom environment was problematic. By the early 1990s Underwriter Laboratories (UL) and Canadian Standards Association (CSA) would no longer certify line-voltage appliances for bathroom use. Newer appliances had to use a step-down transformer to operate the actual toothbrush at low voltage (typically 12, 16 or 24 volts). Wiring standards in many countries require that outlets in bath areas must be protected by a RCD/GFCI device (e.g., required in USA since the 1970s on bathroom outlets in new construction).

By the 1990s there were problems with safety certification of Broxo's original design. Further, improved battery-operated toothbrushes were providing formidable competition. Broxo S. A. still produces and markets a low-voltage model, but its public visibility in the USA has been limited in the face of large competitors, such as Philips Sonicare and Braun Oral-B models. Later Broxo models had no major distributor (such as Squibb) in the USA, and only sell online.

The Broxo low-voltage models used several different methods to attach the actual brushes to the hand piece; however, brushes were often not interchangeable between Broxo models. By the 1990s replacement brushes for line-voltage Broxodent models were no longer sold in the USA, so the original Broxodent Electric Toothbrush was no longer suitable for use there although it had started a trend and sold for over 30 years.