A short YouTube talk by Dr. Sanda Moldovan defining dental floss as a thin string used to remove plaque from between teeth and stating that credit for modern dental floss goes to a New Orleans dentist in 1815 who advised using thin silk thread for interproximal cleaning. The clip frames early string-based floss as an archaic tool and positions floss primarily as a cleaning aid.
What is dental floss? Well, dental floss is really a string is a tool that helps us remove plaque from areas in between the teeth where the toothbrush doesn't really completely reach. According to most sources, credit for the invention of dental floss as we know it goes to a New Orleans dentist in 1815 who began advising his patients to use a thin silk thread to clean between their teeth. 1815. So this idea of string floss is really archaic, and that's what I'm trying to point out here. When this first got started, it was just a tool to be used.
