TEETH AND HEALTH

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2329, 15 September 1921, Page 1

TEETH AND HEALTH

Protesting against the proposal in the Dentists’ Bill to admit unregistered dentists to registration, the medical correspondent of the London Times says the objection to the unqualified dentist is that he is unlikely to take the large view. His experience is apt to be mechanical, not scientific. And the need is perhaps more for science than ipechanics, that is for prevention rather than cure. English parents simply must be convinced that children’s food matters enormously to children’s teeth. The recent researches at the Lister Institute on food and food values have shown how great is the damage inflicted when those subtle properties known as vitamin - es are excluded from food. One of the vitamines resides in brown bread, but is largely absent from white. Again, lack of butter and animal fat is capable of producing a profound deterioration. Here is a great opportunity for the dental profession. It must teach the public what to eat and how to eat, for tooth-exercise is every whit as important as the exercise of muscles. Then there is the question of the relation between bad teeth and bad digestion. Many dentists preach the doctrine that the bad digestion is always the result of bad teeth. On the other hand, we have great surgeons, like Sir Arbutlinot Lane, insisting that o'ffon the exact opposite is true —the bad digestion produces the bad teeth. This matter requires to be cleared up, for a great deal depends on il. What we need is preventive dentistry, that is dental care in its widest sugnificance. Ilis teeth, indeed, may well come to be looked on as an index of a man’s general health; their troubles as important danger signals.