HARRY RHODES AND A SON OF MR ALF BRITTON

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18467, 19 May 1928, Page 23 (Supplement)

HARRY RHODES AND A SON OF MR ALF BRITTON

Apples and Health. The first thing that you notice when you are examining people’s throats, is their teeth (says the N.S.W. Minister of Health, Dr Arthur). For very many years I was engaged in out-patients' work at Sydney Hospital. In that long period I had occasion to look down a good many people’s throats, but I could count almost on the fingers of one hand the really good sets of teeth in any girl above the age of 15 years. I cannot understand why, by simple observances, people do not do more to try to save their teeth, and why, in the case of parents, they do not give children food that must be chewed. People ought to take to heart the words of Dr Livingstone, Director of the Dental School of King’s College Hospital, London. His view is that faulty diet is the cause of dental decay. Such a diet he describes as sticky, sweet, sloppy, sugary, starchy, and solely synthetic, and that, if the teeth are to be preserved, foods of this kind are either to be avoided or consumer sparingly. Fruit, it is observed, such as an apple, is fragrant, fresh, -and firm to chew. It provides, in effect, the best kind of toothbrush to remove the fermenting scraps of foodstuffs sticking in the teeth. Its acids neutralise these starches and sugars fermenting in the mouth, and are infinitely of more value than any tooth paste.