Teeth Must Work

Ladies' Mirror, Volume V, Issue 6, 1 December 1926, Page 54

Teeth Must Work

By LADY LAWFORD

'|Tc teeth are the only organs of the body that we are given a second chance with as it were. Sometimes they come with much pain and tribulation at an early age; go with many tears and enforced visits to the dentist, also at an early age ! Then, Nature launches our second chance, and woe betide those who neglect this second and last instalment. Few people have sufficient understanding of what an important part teeth play in the scheme of general health. They were intended to be a chief factor in digestion, whereas nowadays they hardly do any work at all, because the majority of people eat as they livesoft. Look at an ordinary dinner menu —“grape fruit” (no chewing to be done there), only the plate has any work; “soup,” also nothing for the teeth to do; “soft fish,” made soft by sauce; “a braised chicken,” softer than the cream and truffles it is stuffed with; “asparagus,” ice-cream there. In all that long dinner the teeth have not got ten minutes’ real hard work to do, and so. like everything that is not used and used daily, deteriorate and becomes in time useless. In the case of teeth this is a very serious affair indeed, for instead of being the active agents that produce the digestive saliva, they deteriorate to mere foreign bodies in the gum, in time becoming septic and nasty, and proceed to poison the blood, causing unpleasant pains in the arms and neck, to say nothing of how they make the breath of the

owner of these semi-useless lumps of decaying ivory anything but pleasant. The sufferer flies off to dentists who say the dread word “pyorrhoea” ! They rush to the Xray specialist to have their worst suspicions confirmed, hence to the anaesthetist and the dental chair, and with sore and bleeding gums live on milk and soup, dodging their friends till the sore and aching mouth can bear to have its first instalment of bright and shining teeth put in, when they once more face the light of day and tell everyone how much better they feel. A little care and forethought could have saved all that—the chewing of hard crust or biscuit, just a few minutes a day, or, better than nothing, a tough steak. Then the twice daily cleansing with a plain water rinsing after lunch. With some people bad teeth are constitutional, and no care in the world seems able to save them, yet very often strict attention to diet and a mild course of fruit and vegetables only with a twice daily massage of the gums will arrest decay. To combat the film on teeth, cut an apple and rub the gums with it; also chew it well, and eject it. Do not rinse the mouth out after this, ns the apple juice is a preservative. Chew as often as possible a crust of bread, and if the teeth are at all loose, hold raw diluted lemon-juice in the mouth for a minute at a time, three times a day, and do not rinse the mouth afterwards. In short, take care of the teeth from earliest infancy onward.