A NOVELTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 13979, 8 February 1909, Page 3

A NOVELTY.

PERFECT SET OF TEETH.

A MODERN white man with a perfect complement of natural teeth is so great a novelty that when dentists hear of him they leave no stone unturned to capture him and have a good look at his mouth. Speaking to a dentist who has been in practice for upwards of 20 years, a New Zealand Times reporter asked if he was in the habit of seeing people with a " full mouth" of natural teeth? He replied that neither ho nor any of his fellow dentists were so lucky. In all his experience, he had only seen one set of perfect teeth—all sound and all capable of doing the hardest work. This novelty belonged to a sailor who had never taken the slightest care of his mouth, who know nothing of the use of toothbrushes, and who just ate what he liked, when he liked, and how he liked. He had not called on a dentist because he wanted advice, but had just been run in as a novelty. The professional man desired to get a cast of the unique set of teeth. Most dentists have many casts of " perfect" sets, but in almost all cases they are taken from the mouth of savages. The undisturbed natives of South Africa seem to have the most perfect teeth, but it is, according to a Wellington dentist, not at all uncommon to find tooth disease among many savage races. A particularly evil disease attacks the Chinese and Japanese, the gums shrinking from the teeth, which ultimately drop out. Extraction of sound teeth appears to be the only way of arresting this shrinkage. More or less crude forms of tooth doctoring and extraction have existed since the most remote ages, and there are . authentic instances of teeth having been ".stopped" in Egypt ages prior to the time when Britons were wearing little but blue paint.