HOW TO TAKE CARE OF THE TEETH.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 17, 26 January 1878, Page 3

HOW TO TAKE CARE OF THE TEETH.

Some time ago the Odontography Society of Philadelphia offered a prize for the best essay on the care of the teeth, the same lo be published for the benefit of tin' public. The prize was awarded for the following rules for preserving the teeth : 1. Cleanse your teeth once, or oftcner, every <lay. Always cleanse them before retiring at night. Always pick the teeth and rinse the mouth after eating.

2. Cleansing the teeth consists in thoroughly removing every particle of foreign substance from around the teeth and gums. 3. To cleanse, use well-made brashes, soft quill or wood tootpicks, an antaeid styptic toothwash and precipitated chalk. If these fail apply to a reliable dentist. 4. Always roll the brush up and down lengthwise of the teeth, by which means you may avoid injuring the gums and necks of the teeth, and more thoroughly cleanse between them.

5. Never use a dentifrice containing acid, alkali, charcoal, soap, wilt, or any gritty or powerful detersive substance. 0. Powders and pastes generally are objoctionable. They injure the gums and soft parts of the teeth, and greatly assist in forming tartar. A wash, properly medicated and carefully prepared, is ploatanter and more beneficial. It dissolves the injurious secretions and deposits, and the whole is readily removed with the brush and water.

7. Avoid eating hot food. Thoroughly masticate aud insalivate the food before swallowing it. Frequent indulgence in sweetmeats, &c, between regular meals disturbs the process of digestion, and a viscid secretion is deposited in the mouth (from the stomach) which is very injurious to the teeth.

8. Parents, carefully attend to your children's second dentition. Gently prevail upon them, at an enrly ago, to visit at frequent intervals a careful and skillful operator. Romcnibcr that four of the permanent double teeth como in at about the age of .six rears. They arc very liable to decay early, are very largo, and should never be allowed to require extracting. Children do not " shed " their teeth as they did iu former ages. Instead of bjing trained to mastioato nutritious f >od, they are tempted with and allowed to " gulp down " delicacies, hot cakes, hot beverages, &c. Tints, by depriving the leeth of their natural function and overtasking tho stomach, a morbid condition of thegonoral system is produced ; tho " first teeth" are prematurely decayed, and the permanent sot are not matured at tho proper poriod of doutitiou. Tho consequences ar." terrible.

!t. N«m allow any oik- in cxtr.n-t a tooth, or .to dissuade you from having than tilled, unless iliifiliiloh Bimwy< Mnny so-called dentists, actuated by selfish motives, advise extracting and sacrifice teeth which competent operators can render serviceable for manv years.

10. Carelessness and procrastination are responsible for a large majority of teeth that arv lost.