OUR BABIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2896, 15 September 1909, Page 37

OUR BABIES.

By Hysbia

Published under tke auspice* of th« Society for th» Framotian of the H«alth of Wutn«t? and CfaaldMa,

TO SAVE THE TEETH. Apart altogether from the practice of dentistry, Dr l'iekerill. the head of the Dental School at "Otaigo University, is performing an inestimable j^ervice to the community in trying to enforce on us the fundamental truth that the rising generation cannot have good teeth unless the '• pap feeding " which rules the nursery and holds sway to a ia,rge extent throughout life is given up. Dr Harry Campbell .ha s beon telling us for the last 20 years that we live in a '•pap age." The main object .of the degenerate modern is to have his food liquid, soft, and mushy, " made up " or so tender as to need almost no chewing. The following is a short report of a lecture, "Teeth Ancient and Modern," given by Dr Pickerill last week. DR PICKERILL' S LECTURE. "Applying tho historical method, Dr Pickerill traced what may be called the evolution of the modem tooth, going back as far as several hundred years B.C. The moral to be learnt appeared to be: Give your teeth the work to do which Nature intended th3m to perform, and you -will have good teeth. This truth wat» enforced by reference to actually ascertained data. Taking the Eskimos, for instance, an examination, of 7 0 skulls had discovered only one dissased tooth. North American Indians show a slightly gr<*ater proportion, 10 per cent. ; they might have been longer in contact with civilisation. South Sea Islanders, who on account of their cannibal predilections had bsen left .much to themselves, their native habits of life thus being uninterfered with, ako had a very small proportion of diseased teeth. Taking the Maoris, for example, until quite recent times they ' had shown practi.eally no trace of dental disease at all. Dr Scott, who was an authority, had informed him that he had seen only one carious tooth in all the skulls 'he had examined, and the speaker's own examinations bore him out in this. The Hebrews' were a people of whom mention might be made, as it was a singular fact that in all the laws drawn up by Moses, excellent as they were from a public health point of view, no mention was made of the hygiene of the tooth, and from that the conclusion had been drawn that the ancient Hebrews had excellent teeth, and therefore there was no need to mention the subject. However, it was known that they valued , theiT teeth very much, as they placed them on the fsame footing as their eyes^ — an eyo for an eye and a tcoth for a tooth. It I was eaid that the ancient Eg-yptians suf- j fered from dental decay considerably more ! than they did. It was a custom when people died to overlay their teeth with gold, and early investigators mistook these overlaid teeth for fillings. The lecturer then proceeded to deal with the teeth of more modern peoples and with early methods of dental science, and demonstrated that the more civilised a people became the more th3ir teeth degenerated — they degenerated for want of exercise, 'because the food o£ chilised peoples was soft and sweet; the ufee of sugar had become an abuse; the result being fermentation, indigestion, and rhe clis-solving of ths enamel and the lun-e fcalt of which the teeth were composed." MASTICATION. By Dr Haiihy Campbell (Continued from Last Week's Column ) EVOLUTION OF JAWS AND TEETH. Inasmuch as before man learnt to bipak up the cellulose framework of hi-> vegetable feed by cooking, grinding, and other means he was compelled to make \ igoiou> u-o of 1m masticatory apparatus, we may be sure that in tho p re -cook-cry period this was correspondingly strong and massive, but when with the discovery of artificial means of disintegrating the cellulose (grinding and cooking) mastication was in great measure

relieved of one of its chief functions, the jaws and te&th began to get smaller, while dental caries, hitherto almost unknown, becamo loss lare, invading chiefly the third molars (" wisdom teeth "). Again, as the effect of agrumlture was to reduce- the cellulose ingredients of vegetable food and thus to render it more easy of mastication, we find the jaws and teeth further diminishing in size during this next period, and diseases of _the teeth increasing in frequency. Tho«e effects were not, however, pronounced during the early agricultural epoch, partly because man still continued to eat freely of raw vegetable food, and partly also because much of his cooked vegetable food needed, owing to its coaiscness, considerable imasiication. It is not xuitil we arrive at comparatively recent time* that the effect upon the jaws" and teeth of food artificially produced and prepared becomes pronounced. The piesent-day -\eget-able foed — in our own country, at least— owing to the combined effects of improved agriculture and skilful milling and cooking, is so soft that it excites tompa.ratively little mast:.cation. WE LIVE, IX FACT, IN AN AGE OF PAP. Hence the modern jaw is undergoing considerable- diminution in size, with the result that the teeth, \vh:eh are not diminishing n number at the same rate, *re often unable to take up their normal positions, while dental diseases have assumed truly alarming proportions. THE INSTINCT TO MASTICATE. During the fir=>t months of life the nattrfal function of feeding at the breast provides the infant's jaws, tongue, and lips with aAI the needful exercise. Bottle-feeding fai's to do this, and in con&squenee we frequently find bottle-fed children seeking to satisfy their natural instinct to use those structures by sucking their fingers or other convenient objects. Memo, bt Htgeia.— The best of bottlefeeding is inferior to suckling in regard to the woiik done during feeding, but n proper care is taken the mother can ensure that her baby shall "work for hie living," and not merely imbibe his fcod in a pa-ssive- way. The smaller the hole in the indiarubber nipple the better, provided the baby can bo brought to work ihaj-d enough to secure sufficient, milk infrom a quarter of an hour to 20 minutes. This can ba effected by the mother holding the "bottle and keeping a slight tension on if, and moving the teat about go that the baby's mouth is properly stimulated and has something to tug at. Thus, starting with the mouth, the whole system ot the baby is set hard at wcrk— nerves, muscles, circulatory, breathing ant J digestive organs busily doing their appointed tasks. The long-tube feeder is one of the worst enemies of the modern baby. There is nothing to pull on, and the baby simply imbibes its food without appreciable stimulus or exercise. GIVE BABY A BONE. The teeth are a provision for biting hard foods, bine even before they actually appear the child tries to exercise his toothless gums on any hard substance upon wnici he can lay hold, and there can be no doubt that hw so doing tends to facilitate the eruption of th* teeth, a truth which is, indeed universally recognised, whether by the primitive mother who hangs the tcoth of some wild beast round the r..eck of her infant or she up-to-date one who provide* h&rs with a bejewelled ivory or coral bauble As soon as th« teeth have been cut the masticatory 'nstinct has among primitive peoples abundant scope Jn tJv» j chewing of ths ccar*e hard fowls which I constitute their dietary : but in us modern*, Biibeisting as we do mainly on soft fcod«, it docs not find its proper expression, and thus it tends to die out. >.everthe.ess, it dies a hard death, and lon& continues .o assert itself ; witness the tsndency of children to bite their pencils and penholders and to chew small pieces of indiaiubber ior hours together. I have (known a ch.kl vO ff naw through a bone penholder much in the same way as a carnivorous animal gnaws at i a m^" e alluda in passing to the "grinding of the teeth which takes placo during sleep in disturbed states of the npnous It is a tvue masticatory act, hi which the normal Wral grinding movement of the lower jaw is well marked, and it may thus be legarded as a perverted manifestation of the masticatory instinct. HEA.LTH OF WOMEN AND GHILDREN. The usual monthly meeting pf the Society for the Promotion of the.Health of Women and Children was held in the Town Hall on Friday morning ; present — Mesdames Joachim (in the chair), Leslie Harris, W illiaim, Jackson, Gallaway, Looidon, Donald, Allen King,. Ramsay, T. K. Sidey, and Miss Cohen (acting treasurer). Apologies were received from Mesdames Hosking, Moous Theomin, Ross, Ritchie, and Miss Beswick. , , , Seveial motions were drafted out, to be brought forward by the Dunedin dele, gates at the annual con-fcience of the society, to be held in Wellington on October The following is the report from the Karitane Home ior the month of August: — " The nursing staff re complete, and working well. Probationer Nurs« Mitchell has gone to Hasting 6as acting Plunket nurse. During the month &ix babies were admitted, and there are now 13 babies in the Home, moet of whom are making very good progress, gaining on an average jib a week, with the exception of the recent admissions. All babies leaving the Home and etill living in the di&trict are now handed over at once to the care of the Plunket nurses. On the 13th a demonstration on the preparation of humanised milk was given to 14 medical etud'ents from the University. Mies Cohen and her guild of girla spentan afternoon sewing for the babies. There have been over 200 visitors to the Home durinsr the month. The volunteer nurses remain very faithful to their work." The following is the Plunkefc nuise's re-pc-it:—" Visits paid. 530; babips under care, 108; new babies 25. All the babies have improved, and none has died. Three demonstrations in private houses and one in, the dairy have been ghen during- the month. Forty-five mothers have vipited the recently opened Plunket nurses' room in Liverpool street. The weighing machine sent by Lady Plunket has arrived, and will •no iloubt be taken advantage of by mothers visiting the Plunket nurse at her office." The following donations have been received:—Mrs J. H. Walker, a garden seat; Sister Marry, knitted garments; Mrs Hallernstein, a steriliser ; Mrs Jolmstone, ss ; Miss Cossey, ss; proceeds of Dr King's lecture, £42 15s 3d.