DIET AND TEETH

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 131, 2 March 1928, Page 8

DIET AND TEETH

LESSONS FROM THE MAORI Dominion Special Service. Auckland, March 1. The perfection and beauty of the teeth of the Maoris when living in their natural conditions has always been a source of admiration and of Interest to observers, and many attempts have been made to discover their secret. Twenty years ago Dr. Pickerill, the Dean of the Otago School of Dentistry, devoted some months to careful investigation of the problem and embodied his observations in a standard work which won the Cartwright Essay prize. With a view to comparing Dr. Pickerill’s results with conditions existing to-day, a well-known Auckland dentist spent part of his holiday last month visiting the most inaccessible Native settlements in the Urewera Country. The extraordinary deterioration which he found in the teeth of the Maori children there affords strong confirmation of the view that highly refined foods of modern civilisation are most injurious. When Dr. Pickerill made his investigations he noted among the Maori children of the Urewera Country 99 per cent, of freedom from dental caries. The Auckland dentist when visiting Rua’s settlement at Maungapohatu examined many children sent out to him at random from the school, and he found that approximately 75 per cent, of them were suffering from dental caries. In one boy of 14 years of age lie found pyorrhea. When Dr. Pickerill made his observations the Urewera Maoris were living almost solely on fruit, roots, and berries. The children whom the Auckland dentist examined are making much use of refined sugar, white flour, tinned meats, and tinned fruits, and it is to this diet that he attributes the striking change in the condition of their teeth.