A COMPARISON OF TEETH

Hokitika Guardian, 16 February 1925, Page 4

A COMPARISON OF TEETH

.MAORI AND BRITISH. LONDON. Dec. :>l. A comparative study of the jaws and occlusions of a certain number ol .Maori and of British born in New Zealand was brought before the Society for the Study of Orthodontics at its December meeting by Miss V. 11. George. in ibe course of her work for the Research Committee of the Dental Hoard at the Royal College of Surgeons. says the “Untish .Medical Journal,'’ .Miss George was asked to examine a number of plaster easts sent from New Zealand. These casts were obtained from twenty .Maori and twenty men of British colonial stock' on their return to the Dominion after the war and before demobilisation. In all the .Maori easts the palates were well formed, usually spreading in a wide arch containing the full number of teeth, and normal occlusion was apparently the ride. In the British casts on the other hand, the arches uero comparatively small and crowded, while the oci ulisiii. which was usually subnormal. also afforded a notable contrast to the .Maori series. She gave some average measurements based on these casts, showing the greatest wdth between the hneettl surfaces of the canine teeth, tftb second prcmolars. and the molars; also the length of the plate obtained hv taking a line drawn Irom the mid-point between the central incisors to the mid-point of a line connecting the last molars. They lully supported the statements quoted above.

.Miss George added that it appears from descriptions by those who hm studied the Maori at close quarters tha their other physical- characteristic were as markedly dilferent from iliom of New Zealanders of the British tatf as were t heir jaws and- o< elusions. ’I In New Zealand colonist Imd much tlo same physique as the average English man —medium height and build, will a rather long, narrow face, ortlingua thous profile, and brnchycephalie shell