The Press TUESDAY, JULY 21, 1964. Teeth And Behaviour

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30498, 21 July 1964, Page 12

The Press TUESDAY, JULY 21, 1964. Teeth And Behaviour

The news item printed on our front page on Saturday under the heading, “ Teeth and Behaviour ”, is the first attempt to explain to the lay public the nature and significance of a research project that has aroused considerable interest among scientists and medical men both in New Zealand and overseas. The average New Zealander is apt to think that research in this country must be directed to “ making “two blades of grass grow where but one grew “before”, or to similar practical ends; and so, Indeed, much of it necessarily is. But our preoccupation with such utilitarian studies should not allow us to discourage the sort of inquiry which Dr. R. G. Every, a leading Christchurch dentist, has pursued with extraordinary devotion and at great personal sacrifice for some 27 years.

Dr. Every’s studies of tooth wear and jaw action in men and animals have added importantly to the sum of knowledge in several scientific disciplines and may cause a radical revision of some long-held ideas. As authorities disagree on the extent to which his conclusions explain—and point to the treatment of—some puzzling physical, mental, and psychological disorders, it is hardly to be expected that there will be quick and easy acceptance of Dr. Every’s more speculative—but fundamentally perhaps more im-portant-theories about the influence of the teeth on the shaping of individual and national character, which he believes will throw some light on the underlying causes of aggression and war. But original thinkers seldom have found ready acceptance of their ideas.

The University of Canterbury is to be congratulated on having appointed Dr. Every to an honorary research fellowship in its zoology department, for his project is one that promises to add to the distinctions won by New Zealand scholarship. The comparatively modest funds required to complete the collation and publication of Dr. Every’s studies should not be beyond the resources of a prosperous country that is belatedly recognising the vital importance of research.