The Daily News. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27. THE PEOPLE'S TEETH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 170, 27 October 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27. THE PEOPLE'S TEETH.

Sit down for a week and you will find it difficult to walk when you rise. Strap your hand across your chest for a period and the muscles of the arm will atrophy and the bones lose their resilience. Live in a darkened room and Nature, finding no use for your eyes, will weaken them. Wear boots and you will lose the natural grasp of the foot. It was intended that you should be able to hold objects with your foot. Your hair was given you to protect your head. You use a hat to protect the hair. Nature, seeing that there is no need for her handiwork, take away the hair. Breathe poison and Nature kills the lungs; misuse anything that Nature has rfiade and she punishes you for misusing it. We have become superior to instinct, we are not satisfied with Nature's methods, we produce monstrosities in animals and vegetables, and Nature fights us with diseases and blights and pestilences. Among all Civilised people there are a few who know that teeth are as important as hands or feet or eyes. Because the teeth of the nations are dying of atrophy science must step in to arrest the atrophy. It is as important that the teeth of the people should recover theii normality as it would be in a community where failing eyesight was common to fight until sight was restored. People are apathetic about the subject of teeth, The average adult seems to be under the impression that artificial substitutes are all that are necessary. The widespread death of natural teeth is without any doubt whatever the result of the widespread disuse of teeth. The savage mar will masticate maize or harsh, sinewy meat, or even fish bones, with perfect ease. He exercises his masticatory power, The civilised man more and more inclines to easy food. It is almost invariable that the molar teeth give up the ghost the sooner of the set. It is unusual to find a man or woman of forty who has perfect molars. It is still absolutely necessary for a man to use the front teeth, but with soft food not at all necessary that the "back" teeth shall b« used. Nature steps in and takes the teeth away by a gradual and horribly painful process of decay. There is another phase. Nature plants teeth hoping they will be used. She plants them ir the bony soil of the jaw. The normal jaw is an instrument of tremendous power. When you look for signs of determination in a man, you insensibly look at his jaw. You tell yourself that he has "a square jaw," and so on. The development of a jaw is simply the result of the use of the masticatory organs, That is to say, a determined man has physical capacity. To have physical capacity he must have been well fed. Tc be well fed he must have masticated well To have masticated well means that every chemical process necessary for the ordinary everyday development of everj part of him has been attended to in the routine method of Nature. The develop ment of disease which sweeps whole bunches of people into the grave in s few weeks is not so serious as tlu atrophy of the people's teeth, for epi demies are Nature's, methods of elimin ating imperfections at a breath, bul gradual atrophy is simply Nature's warn ing to "go slow" in disobeying her com mands. Almost every phase of moderi commerce is in antagonism to the natu ral living of the people. It is impossibli that people can live according to in stinct when greed suggests monstrositie: in the way of food, and makes hugi fortunes by ruining the digestions of tlx multitudes. Everywhere the people an told to do those things that are ii direct antagonism to their instincts—aw the people obey. Few people believe tha sound molars are a more precious pos session than all the drugs of the phar maeopaeia, that a canine tooth is a fine; thing than a fat bankbook, or that tlu average normal incisors are a more po tent factor in the making of a natioi than a gold mine. It is a patent facto the person who will think for a mo ment that normal health is necessary t< normal success, that to have norma health one must have normal heart lungs, feet, hands, brain, ears, eyes ant teeth. A person's teeth are as important a part of his system as his hips, his jaw his thorax or his stomach, and if hi. l teeth are not normal it follows thai every other organ is affected. We wil go so far as to say that the nation o: people who knew nothing of tooth trou bles could know nothing of any othei disease, that the fight to keep natura teeth alive is as great a fight and a; worthy a one as the struggle to kill eon sumption, or hookworm, malaria, the bu bonic plague, or leprosy. It will occui to many that it is an absurd idea to set in a decayed tooth the wiping out of ;i nation, hut the abnormality of decaying eyes, ears or noses would be a no greatei indication of Nature's displeasure. Nature suits her handiwork to conditions She evolves from a web-footed animal the horse, simply because the water ir the territory inhabited by the horse has dried up and his web feet are unnecessary. She is taking away the teeth of man because he refuses to masticate. If he refuses to masticate he will not only be deprived of teeth but the structure on which they grow. There is no need for a jaw that can exert a pressure of sixty or seventy pounds if there are no teeth to exert the pressure on. The fight of skilled dentists is of no use if the reason of the death of teeth is not removed. The civilised child who was taken from ,it.s soft-feeding parents and sent to live iamong Zulus, who eat hard food that requires much mastication, would have teeth that remained as Jonsr as its life. It is useless to deplore the fearful state of the teeth of the school children of New Zealand as long as the essential

rule of Nature is not understood —that Nature kills everything that is not adequately used. While all modern educational authorities insist that the muscles of the children should he trained and their brains exercised, they persist in the delusion that dental attention will prevent the result of generations of disobedience of the common law of mastication and the use of natural food.