SAND AND TEETH

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 121, 8 February 1918, Page 5

SAND AND TEETH

'A LESSON FROM PALESTINE. When a body of invalided men from Palestine roachcd this country the other day, attention was drawn to the condition of their teeth. Active service ; often play 6 havoc witli the teeth, and j-tho returned soldier has to pass 'through the hands of the military dentists before he is given leave, it was found in the caso of these mounted men from tho New Zealand Forces in Palestine that the teeth were in a qnito extraordinary clean and sound condition. "There is no mystery about it," said an old soldier to a Dominion reporter yesterday. "Tho doctors ought to know that the people who live in sandy countries have sound teeth. We found that in Africa. You scarccly need to use a footh-brush when you are camped in tlie desert. The teeth are kept clean and bright by the sand, which gets on tlie food, drifts into the mouth and generally pervades everything. ''Some of the natives in the sandv reainns nf Africa have wonderfully good teeth, always as white and clean as the keys of a piano. They never see a tnoth-brush. They put some finnd in the mouth, Till) it round with a finger, and snit it out. Of course, the dentist will toll you that,_v 01 , 110 f ttso pnnd- It will tho enamel. The fellows dnn'fc know anything •about dentists: thev don't need them" Anrn-°v. here are nnp nien coming bark from Palestine with teeth so sound and clean that the doctors are surprised, while the. men from Flanders need the 'drill and the forceps nfc nnp e . How do the experts explain that?"