MEASURING THE BITE

Evening Star, Issue 22956, 13 May 1938, Page 2

MEASURING THE BITE

The Americans are fond of all kind* of weird researches, and their latest experiment consists in discovering what our averago gum power is (writes £*• A.- Yaruham). The researches were carried out by, the dental school of an American university, and for the work an instrument was invented with a. name something like a bad toothache, the Gnathodynamometer. Actually this was not so fearful as it sounds. It consisted merely of two grips for the teeth separated by a spring, to which was attached a long indicator to register the force used. It was found that the average for a thousand bites from different person* was 1711 b. But there was a printer among the thousand with a bite or 2701 b—an extraordinary figure, equivalent to practically one-eighth of a ton The next step involved the use of another instrument just as jaw-breaking to pronounce, the Phagodynamometer, to see what strength was needed for 1 crushing our food. It ranged from only, 31b for boiled' tongue up to 801 b for a grilled steak. . ... But those figures rose considerably when it came to consideration of the force necessary to deal with scraps of food lodged between the teeth. . Gum drops, ordinarily crushed before 301 b pressure was reached, needed eight times that amount when lodged, and bread crusts 3501 b. These figures are truly remarkable, and the loss of efficiency sustained when artificial teeth are fitted is obvious, when it is said that the average pres* sure is reduced to about 301 b.