TALKS ON HEALTH.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 926, 22 November 1933, Page 10

TALKS ON HEALTH.

Scientific Facts About Teeth and Diet.

(By A FAMILY DOCTOR.) Everyone knows that the shape and size of the teeth of any given animal are regulated by the kind of food it eats. A lion would be in a sore fix if he were provided with the nibbling teeth of a sheep, and the poor old sheep wOuld never be able to crop the grass with the long, pointed teeth of the lion. Dame Nature, ever thoughtful for the walfare of her creatures, gives each one teeth adapted to diet. A newborn calf living on milk is very properly <*iven no teeth at all. Indeed, so close is the relation of teeth to diet* that if the jaws and teeth of an extinct animal are dug up, the kind of food that the antediluvian monster lived on can be declared with certainty. This is a scientific fact—that teeth teach us what the diet should be. A Scientific Fact. Now, science ought not to be an abstruse code of thought confined to a few bald-headed professors who wear blue spectacles and give everything a long Latin name. When a scientific fact is discovered it ought to be put to some use. Each new discovery in the domain of science ought to be instantly applied to the improvement of our daily lives. Man, as regards his body, is an animal. That he has an immortal soul and can elevate his mind to the worship of God does not alter the circumstance of his animal origin. Rules that apply to animals also apply to man, and man affords no. exception to the rule that teeth are adapted to diet. Tiger, Sheep and Man. Imagine, therefore, that I take you to a case at a museum containing the skull of a tiger and the skull of a sheep alongside of a human skull. Looking first at the teeth and jaws of the two animals, you would have no hesitation in saying that flesh was the diet for the sharp'teeth and grass or herbs for the sheep’s teeth; a little schoolgirl could tell you that. But turn your attention to the human teeth, j and tell me what conclusions you draw from their general shape and size. If 3'ou could explain to me the message that Dame Nature wished to convey to us by presenting us with the type of teeth we possess, you would settle one of the greatest problems of human existence. Life is a struggle, and the stronger our teeth are the better will be our digestions, the stronger will be our systems and the more successful will be our fight for existence. It is heartbreaking to find how many soldiers broke down under war conditions because their teeth were too rotten to cope with their food. Of all common complaints, indigestion and its complications must be placed first, and in nine cases out of ten the teeth are at fault. Some Teeth Facts. But let us return to the study of our teeth and try to decipher a page out of Nature's book. There are three outstanding facts about our teeth. The first is that they are intensely hard, far harder than bone. Most of us know from bitter experience that dentists have to use instruments of the hardest steel, driven by motor, in order to make any impression on the adamantine enamel of the teeth. The second fact is that the lower jaw is a very powerful bone; the square angle of "the jaw that can be felt outside opposite the last molar tooth is one of the strongest masses of bone in the body. As fractures go, the jaw is not often broken —not nearly so often as the collar-bone or wrist-bone or ankle. The third fact is that the muscle that moves the lower jaw in mastication is, for its size, the toughest muscle in the whole body. What Nature Means. Now knit your brow for a determined mental effort. Given that the teeth are covered by the hardest substance in the body, that they are set in a very powerful bone which is worked by one of the strongest muscles of the bodv, what do you think our diet should be? Slops and jelly? Surely not! If slops were to be our diet we should be given a sucker or proboscis to take our food in. Nature always gives a set of teeth, a jaw, and a muscle carefully adapted to the food she intends us to eat. A moment’s consideration .of* the three facts enumerated above will convince you that our food should be tough, not always prepared in pap form. A baby gets milk or pap because it has no teeth, but an adult should be given a diet that requires crunching and munching and chewing. Remembering that the teeth and diet are ahvays related, what other condition can you draw from the rotten state of the nation’s teeth than that the diet is at fault? A Cause of Decay. You must now learn a second scientific fact, which may be stated thus: Any organ or structure of the body that is not used tends to degenerate and die away. Think of a muscle that wastes away to nothing when it is not used. Your brain power fades if it is not constantly exercised. If a man does not practise his arithmetic, a year or two after he has left school he finds great difficulty in doing a sum that would have been an easy task to him when he was in the sixth standard. Use means health, disuse degeneracy. And now we have the key to the problem of decayed teeth. We do not give our teeth enough work to do: we gobble our food down without chewing, and it is served up so soft that the teeth have nothing to crunch. Animals have healthier teeth than we because their diet is simple and natural. Where Teeth Are Perfect. During a few months’ stay in Egypt I noticed as one of the most striking features of the country folk that they all had perfect teeth. They aroused the envy of the English in this respect. We pride ourselves on being in the van of civilisation, and yet we have to play second fiddle to the Egyptians in the matter of teeth. In Christchurch we puzzle our heads for new ways of dealing with the tooth problem, and yet the Egyptian peasant has solved the problem without any help. They seldom clean their teeth, but they eat a simple, wholesome diet of wholemeal bread, w’hich they chew before swallowing. They also eat a large quantity of sugarcane, tearing pieces of the hard fibre off the cane in the natural state, munching them until all the sugar is extracted, and then spitting out the remains of the tough, woody fibre. It is rather exasperating to the doctor who has the health of the nation at heart to leave Egypt, where every man, woman and child has a perfc.t set of teeth,

and return to New Zealand, where a perfect set of teeth is almost unknown and where the complications arising: from impaired digestion are almost universal.