CIVILIZATION 
NOT THE 
Csose of Tooth Decry 
Bn £ssa\> 
BY 
JOHN J. R. PATRICK, D.D.S., 
Of Belleville, Illinois. 
Read before the Illinois State Dental Society, at their Eighteenth Annual 
Session, held, in Quincy, on the 10th of May, 1882. 
TOGETHER WITH A. SHORT DESCRIPTION OF AN 
Instrument for Regulating the Human Teeth, 
Reprint from the Society’s Transactions CIVILIZATION 
NOT THE 
CAUSE OF TOOTH DECAY. 
BY JOHN J. R. PATRICK, D. D S., BELLEVILLE, ILLINOIS. 
[Read before the Illinois State Dental Society, at their Eighteenth Annual Session, held in Quincy, 
on the 10th of May, 1882.] 
Gentlemen:—It is not too much to say that civilization, 
being a slow process of long and complex growth, can only be 
compreh.ended when studied through its entire range. The 
present cannot be properly understood without a knowledge of 
the past, and a knowledge of the whole is necessary to explain a 
part. Of late years the early history of man is felt to be an 
attractive subject, and a feeling of eager curiosity can be traced 
through the writings of most men who may have occasion to 
speak of the relations of man, not only with all other living 
creatures, but also with that part of creation which is devoid of 
life and which contributes largely to his sustenance. I regret to 
say that the recent literature produced by our own profession is 
not far behind others in the belief that facts are only useful to 
illustrate theories; and it seems as if the great complexity of the question and of the conditions necessary to produce sound evi- 
dence, has had a tendency to beget acquiescence in that which 
is the most insufficient for scientific accuracy. There is 
a tendency to carry researches into the more abstruse questions 
connected with vitality, the nervous power, and the relations of 
mental and material phenomena; while such inquiries are justi- 
fiable in themselves, to be of scientific value they need to be 
treated with more than common caution as to testimony as well 
as the conclusions to be derived from them, yet it is here that 
such precautions are usually disregarded. 
At the late International Medical Congress, Dr. Norman 
Kingsley read a paper on civilization in its relation to the “ In- 
creasing Degeneracy of the Human Teeth,” and attributed it to 
an increase of nervous diseases correlated to high civilization. 
Mr. Mummery, L. D. S., also read a paper on the subject of 
caries before [the same congress, in which he is reported to have 
made the assertion, that “ in the stone age caries and irregularities 
of the teeth of man were unknown, but as iron and other metal 
instruments, indicative of the increase of knowledge and art, came 
more and more into use, so did those diseases become apparent 
and increase in frequency.” In a little work entitled, “ Practical 
Information about the Teeth ” recently published under the aus- 
pices of the Dental Society of the State of Wisconsin, I find the 
following remarkable passages: 
“ The Creator has provided everything to meet the wants of 
every part of the body, the bones and the teeth not excepted. 
The teeth of wild animals, of uncivilized tribes, and of all people 
who live in accordance with nature, are witnesses to this fact; 
and the teeth of domesticated animals and of nearly all civilized 
nations, or those beings who are living artificially, demonstrate 
their unnatural tendency to early loss. Those nations who best 
observe the laws of nature enjoy the best physical development, the 
best teeth, and the highest mental power. Thus, in Scotland, where 
great attention is paid to proper diet, and where the bone-produc- 
ing elements in food are used most freely, there are fine teeth, 
healthy bodies, and high intellectual resources.” (1.) 
(1). Iii this connection the testimony of Robert Burns, Scotland’s greatest bard, will not be 
out of place to show the existence of decayed and aching teeth in Scotland. Burns died in the year 3 
Therefore, the conclusions arrived at by this author are, that 
wild animals and uncivilized tribes, together with those nations who 
1796, in his thirty-eighth year, and his poem “Address to the Toothache,” was written some ten 
years previous, soon after he had been tormented by that disorder : 
ADDRESS TO THE TOOTHACHE. 
My curse upon thy venom’d stang, 
That shoots my tortur’d gums alang ; 
And thro’ my lugs gies monie a twang 
Wi’ gnawing vengence, 
Tearing my nerves wi’ bitter pang, 
Like racking engines ! 
When fevers burn, or ague freezes, 
Rheumatics gnaw, or colic squeezes, 
Our neighbor’s sympathy may ease us 
Wi’ pitying moan; 
But thee—thou hell o’ a, diseases, 
Aye mocks our groan ! 
Adown my beard the slavers trickle I 
I throw the wee stools o’er the mickle, 
As round the Are the giglets keckle 
To see me loup ; 
While raving mad, I wish a heckle 
Were in their doup. 
O’ a’ the num’rous human dools, 
111 har’sts, daft bargains, cutty stools, 
Or worthy friends rak’d I’ the mools, 
Sad sight to see ! 
The tricks o’ knaves, or fash o’ fools. 
Thou bear’st the gree. 
Where’er that place be priests ca’ hell, 
Whence a’ the tones o’ mis’ry yell, 
And ranked plagues their numbers tell 
In dreadful raw, 
Thou, Toothache, surely bear’st the be 
Amang them a’ ! 
O, thou grim mischief making chiel, 
That gars the notes of discord squeel, 
Till daft mankind aft dance a reel 
In gore a shoe-thick— 
Gie a’ the foes o’ Scotland’s weal 
A towmond’s toothache ! 
After cursing, describing and comparing the torments of an aching tooth he concludes the poem 
in a fit of patriotism by calling on the devil (“Grim mischief-making chiel,”) to 
“ Give all the foes of Scotland’s weal 
A twelve-month’s toothache 1 ” 
Now, when Burns penned this address he knew that his countrymen would not only understand, 
Dut fully appreciate it; for it is the duty of a poet “ to hold the mirror up to nature,” and no man 
performed that obligation more faithfully than Burns, 4 
enjoy high intellectual resources, bone-producing food, and exer- 
cise, have good teeth. That there may be no mistaking the 
author’s meaning on this question, I will again quote from page 
20, which says : “ The unpleasant fact is forced upon all thinking 
people, that the modern manner of living has interfered with the 
whole plan of nature and changed the whole course of life.” And 
on page 21: “ Whoever has seen ancient skulls, or looked into 
the mouths of modern people who live according to nature, may 
have noticed the perfect condition of their teeth.” 
Now, therefore, Dr. Kingsley, Mr. Mummery, L. D. S., and Dr. 
Arthur Holbrook, (the author of Practical Information) may be 
placed in the same category with a number of other doctors as the 
advocates of hypotheses which may be be reduced to the fol- 
lowing syllogism: 
If we lived in a state of nature we would have good teeth 
Savages or uncivilized tribes live in a state of nature, 
Therefore Savages have good teeth. 
Now, if the major and minor propositions of this statement 
are correct, the conclusion must be inevitable. It will therefore 
be necessary to a proper understanding of the question to ascer- 
tain if possible what is the true signification of living in a state of 
nature, and this once understood we will then be able to compre- 
hend what is meant by living in a state of civilization. 
If living in a state of nature means to- be without all the 
artificial contrivances and conveniences which go to make up our 
present condition, then there is not a savage that has yet been 
discovered so low in the scale of humanity as to be truly said to 
be living in that natural condition, for the lowest savages yet 
known on the face of the earth have made some progress towards 
clothing or ornamenting themselves. No savage lives in harmony 
with the laws of nature; on the contrary, it is his ignorance of 
those laws that makes him a savage, and it is only in proportion 
as man understands his surroundings—understands the laws that 
govern his existence, and uses them to his advantage, and in that 
proportion only, does he become civilized. But the laws which 
govern nature are far from being understood, and it is a question 
that often arises—4s it desirable to copy nature ? When nature does her work well, then, and only then can it 
be desirable. For there is a redundancy or an insufticiency in 
most things that nature does, material constantly getting into 
places where it is not needed, and leaving other places where it 
would be of service. Constantly exceeding the bounds of uni- 
formity—a dead calm followed by a terrific cyclone, exceedingly 
hot, or intensely cold, a terrible drouth, and a deluge of rain, a 
season of plenty and a period of famine. And this state of things 
exists, not only in the physical world, but in the region of 
thought. There are periods in history prolific in the production 
of great minds. The age of Elizabeth furnished the greatest 
poets, philosophers, and heroes the world has ever seen—Shaks- 
peare, Massinger, Decker, Beaumont, Fletcher, Milton, Bacon and 
Raleigh; followed by a period of mental inactivity. 
Our good old mother Nature, who is so constantly held up as a 
model of perfection, is full of impropriety, indecorum and loose, 
ness, combined with a fearful amount of strength to restrain her 
children, but she leaves them to do pretty much as they please- 
trusting to time and hard knocks among themselves to teach 
co O 
them wisdom, prudence, primness and propriety. 
There is an eternity of the past for man as well as of the 
future; take all from him that he has acquired through the 
countless ages of his struggle for existence, and he would be naked 
and defenceless; unprovided with hair to cover his naked and 
tender skin, he could not move from place to place with any 
degree of comfort, but would have to confine himself to some 
warm portion of the globe. Even if he possessed the brains of a 
Newton, they would only serve to intensity his wretchedness, for 
he would still be a cowering helpless savage, feeding on the dead 
carcasses of fishes, reptiles, birds and quadrupeds, the leavings of 
other animals that were better provided by nature with fangs and 
talons to supply themselves with food. But the poet informs us 
that “ God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb;” this is a beau- 
tiful sentence, but simply the negative of the true picture, for the 
lamb must be tempered to the blustering wind; universal laws do 
not change to accommodate individuals, the individuals must 
accommodate themselves to the laws or perish. That which is 
beautiful in poetry and attractive in fiction may be false in 
physics. Man has been defined as a cooking animal to distinguish 6 
him from all others, but there was a time in the history of’ man 
when he had not discovered the use of fire. He has also been 
defined as “an animal that works with tools,” but there was a 
time in his history when he had no tools to work with; he had 
to make them ; tools are not natural productions. The progress 
from a natural state to a more civilized condition has been very, 
very slow. Gourd husks and cocoa-nut shells were used long 
before the invention of pottery; bone and stone implements 
before bronze and iron; terms for the lower numerals before the 
higher—twos, fives and tens, before hundreds, thousands and 
myriads. Man had to learn to count his fingers and toes before 
he could master abstractions. 
Man receives all his impressions of the external world through 
his special senses, and nature has endowed the special senses of 
man with all that is necessary for a superior brutal existence ; but 
the civilized or cultivated man, the man of scientific attainments, 
knows from long experience that they can not be trusted. A very 
slight thing affects them ; a little congestion of the liver turns 
them into cheats; an undigested piece of beef distorts the vision; 
an under-done vegetable lodged in the stomach will disturb the 
brain and nervous function to such a degree that unsubstantial 
ghosts and hideous nightmares appear as most substantial truths; 
so, if I needed exact counsel, either in medicine or theology, I 
wrould first require to be informed of the condition of my coun- 
selor’s stomach. It is generally conceded that man, either savage 
or civilized, is a vertebrate animal provided with teeth, and what- 
ever food his environment may compel him to use, his teeth are 
employed to prepare it for his stomach; and wherever man has 
been discovered he has been found to be in possession of these 
necessary organs, for the same reason that birds have feathers. I 
have never seen, in any of the works on natural history or travel 
that I have read, a statement to the contrary, and I have never 
heard the most zealous advocates of unbolted flour and graham 
bread—even at times when their culinary enthusiasm appeared to 
be boiling over while they were rearranging the modern pantry-say 
one word about a savage people becoming edentulous through 
neglecting to adopt their system of dietetics. Yet there are 
savages who are complete strangers to cereal plants, and if such 
savages have good teeth, it cannot be attributed to the use of cereal 
grains, either in a prepared or unprepared condition. 7 
In this connection a few selections from the “ Descriptive 
Sociology, or, Groups of Sociological Facts,” classified and 
arranged by Herbert Spencer, and from other sources, may throw 
some light on the value of dietetics: 
“ The Esquimaux are exclusively an animal-feeding people ; 
their food consists of reindeer, musk-ox, walrus, seals, birds and 
fishes.”—Sir John Lubbock's Pre-IIistoric Times, page 428. 
Our journeys have taught us the wisdom of the Esqui- 
maux appetite and there are few among us who do not relish a 
slice of raw blubber or a chunk of frozen walrus beef. In value it 
is far above the same weight of pemmican.”—Dr. Kane’s Arctic 
Explorations, vol. 2. page 15. 
Greenlanders. — “The choice dish of the Greenlanders is 
the flesh of the reindeer, but as these animals have become very 
scarce they are indebted to the sea for their permanent sustenance, 
seals, fish and sea-fowl. On the capture of a seal the wound is 
immediately stopped up, to preserve the blood, which is rolled 
into balls like force-meat. Parts of the seal are preserved under 
the grass in summer, and a whole seal is buried under the snow 
in winter. The flesh half-frozen and half-putrid is eaten by the 
Greenlanders with the keenest appetite and is called mi-ki-ak.”— 
Simond's Curiosities of Food, page 32. 
Icelanders. — “ The diet of the Icelanders consists almost 
solely of animal food; fish, either fresh or dried, forms by far the 
largest proportion. During the summer they have milk and but- 
ter in considerable abundance, but of bread and every other 
vegetable food there is the utmost scarcity.”—Mackenzies' Travels 
in Iceland, page 407. 
Siberia, Lower Kolyma. — “ Their food consists of fish or 
reindeer meat boiled, or fried in train-oil. As an occasional deli- 
cacy they have baked cakes of fish roe, or of dried and finely - 
pounded muksuns, which are the substitutes for meal. Bread is 
everywhere rare.”- Wrangle's Expedition to the Polar Sea, page 74. 
The Jakuts.— “Their food consists of beef and horseflesh, 
sour cow’s milk and mare’s milk. They boil their meat, but never 
roast or bake it, and bread is unknown among them. Fat is 
their greatest delicacy. They eat it in every possible shape— 
raw, melted, fresh, or spoilt. In general they regard quantity 
more than quality in their food* They prepare from cow’s rtiilk 8 
what is called jakut butter. It is more like a kind of cheese, or 
curd, and has a sourish taste; it is not very rich, and is a very 
good article of food eaten alone.” (In fact it is schmierkase.)— 
Wrangle's Expedition to the Polar Sea, page 23. 
North American Indians.—“ The buffalo meat is the great 
staple and staff of life in this country (Mandans of the Upper 
Missouri), and seldom, if ever, fails to afford them an abundant 
and wholesome means of subsistence. They live almost exclu- 
sively on the flesh of these animals through every part of the 
year.”—Catlin's North American Indians, vol. 1, page 122. 
Indian Tribes of the Interior of Oregon.—“They all prefer 
their meat putrid, and frequently keep it until it smells so strong 
as to be disgusting. • Parts of the salmon they bury under ground 
for two or three months to putrefy, and the more it is decayed 
the greater delicacy they consider it.”— Wilk's U. S. Exploring 
Expedition, vol. 4, page 452. 
Mexico.—The Indians of Hew Spain.—“ Those subject to 
the European domination generally attain to a pretty advanced 
age. As peaceable cultivators and inhabitants of villages, they 
are not exposed to the accidents attending'the wandering life of 
the hunters and warriors of the Mississippi and the savannas of 
the Rio Gila. These people live on an almost entirely vegetable 
food, their maize and cereal gramina.”—Taylor's selections from 
Humboldt's works relating to Mexico, page 67. 
“The usual food of the laboring classes throughout such 
States as I have visited, is the thin cake of crushed maize, named 
tortilla; and it is remarkable that, notwithstanding the great 
abundance of cattle in many places, the traveler can rarely obtain 
meat in the little huts which he finds on his road. A few fowls 
are at times to be seen wandering near the cottages, or some pigs 
rambling through the village, and the flesh of these creatures is 
only used to furnish a feast on holidays.”—Lyon's Residence in 
Mexico, vol. 2, page 244. 
Pampas Indians.—“ The Indians of whom I heard the most 
were those who inhabit the vast unknown plains of the pampas, 
and who are all horsemen, or rather pass their lives on horseback. 
The life they lead is singularly interesting. In spite of the 
climate, which is burning hot in summer and freezing in winter, 
these brave men, who have never yet been subdued, are entirely naked, and have not even a’covering forTheir heads. They live 
together in tribes, each of which is governed by a cacique; but 
they have no fixed place of residence. Where the pasture is good, 
there they are to be found until it is consumed by their horses. 
They have neither bread, fruit nor vegetables, but they subsist 
entirely upon the flesh of their mares, ‘ and the ground is the bed 
on which, from their infancy, they have always slept.’”—Sir 
Francis Head's Journeys Across the Pampas, page 120. 
Guachos.—“We find a people living between the twentieth 
and fortieth parallels of latitude, in the Argentine Republic, 
known as Guachos (half-white inhabitants of the pampas). They 
are a mixed race of Indian and Spanish blood, who are employed 
at the ranches or great cattle stations, and spend the greater part 
of their time on horseback, in hunting the half-wild cattle which 
roam over the grassy plains extending from the Atlantic coast to 
the foot of the Andes. These people live entirely on roast beef, 
with a little salt, scarcely ever tasting farinaceous or other veget- 
able food, and their sole beverage is mate, or Paraguay tea, with- 
out sugar.”— Odontology Society Transactions, vol. 2., new series, 
page 41. 
The Natives of Australia. —“ Amongst the almost unlim- 
ited catalogue of edible articles used by the natives of Australia, 
the following may be classed as the chief : All salt and fresh 
water fish, and shell fish, of which in the large rivers there are 
vast numbers and many species ; fresh water turtles, frogs of 
different kinds, rats and mice, lizards and most kinds of snakes 
and reptiles, grubs of all kinds, moths of several varieties, fungi 
and many sorts of roots, the leaves and tops of many plants, 
various kinds of fruits and berries, the bark from the roots of 
many trees and shrubs, the seeds of leguminous plants, gum from 
several species of acacia, different sorts of manna, honey from the 
native bee, and also from the flowers of banksia by soaking them 
in water, the tender leaves of the grass tree, the lame of insects, 
white ants, eggs of birds, many kinds of kangaroo, opossums, 
squirrels, sloths and wallabies, ducks, geese, cockatoos, parrots, 
wild dogs and wambats,” and in fact everything that he can strike 
with his boomerang or seize with his hands or teeth.—Eyre's Cen- 
tral Australia, vol. 2, page 250. 
New Zealand.—-The food of the natives consists of sweet 10 
potatoes, aromatic berries, the pulp of the fern tree, the heart of 
a palm-tree and many different berries. Of animals they con- 
sume fishes, dogs, the indigenous rat, crawfish, birds and guanas. 
Fish, however is the principal food of the inhabitants, and the 
roots of the fern are to the people what bread is to the inhabitants 
of Europe.”—DieffenbacBs Travels in New Zealand, vol. 2, page 17. 
The natives of the Friendly Islands, of Otaneite, Feejee, 
Tanna (one of New Hebrides), New Caledonia, Island of Savu 
(between Australia and Java), and the inhabitants of the Sand- 
wich Islands, all live on a mixed diet, varied only by the condi- 
tions which surround them. 
China.—“The Chinese have no prejudices whatever as re- 
gards food; they eat everything and anything from which they 
can derive nutrition. Dogs, rats, mice, monkeys, snakes, sea- 
slugs, rotten eggs, putrefied fish, unhatched ducks and chickens. 
Both in eating and drinking the Chinese are temperate, and are 
satisfied with two daily meals; rice about 10:00 a. m., and rice at 
5:00 p. m. The only repugnance I have observed in China is to 
the use of milk. I never saw or heard of butter, cream, milk, or 
whey being introduced at a Chinese table.”—Bowring, in Statisti- 
cal Society Journal, vol. 20, page 47. 
Japan.—“Japan surpasses most countries hitherto known 
to us in the multiplicity of the articles of food to be met with in 
its islands and the surrounding ocean. Rice, which is here exceed 
ingly white and well-tasted, supplies with the Japanese the place of 
bread ; they eat it boiled with every kind of provisions. Miso soup 
boiled, with fish and onions, is eaten by the common people, fre- 
quently three times a day, at each of their customary meals. Misos 
are not unlike lentils, they are small beans and are gathered from 
the JDolichossoga. Fish is a very common dish with the Japanese, 
both boiled and fried in oil. Fowls, of which they have a great 
variety, both wild and tame, are eaten in great abundance, and 
the flesh of whales, though coarse, is in several places, among the 
poorer sort, a very common food. In their victuals they make a 
very plentiful use of mushrooms, egg-apple, carrots, and several 
kinds of bulbous roots and beans. Oysters and other shell fish, 
shrimps and crabs boiled or stewed, are also eaten.”—Thuriburg's 
Travels, vol. A:, page 35—1705. 
India,—From the earliest period the most general food in 11 
India has been rice, which is still the common food in nearly all 
the hottest countries in Asia. It is not, however, so much used 
in the south of Hindostan as formerly, and has been replaced by 
another grain, called ragi.”—Buckle'1 s History of Civilization, 
vol. 1, page 64. 
“ The principal food of the people of Hindostan is wheat, 
in the Deccan, Jo war and Bajra; rice as a general article of sub- 
sistence, is confined to Bengal, and part of Behar, with the low 
country along the sea all around the peninsula. In most parts of 
India wheat is only used as a luxury.”—Elphinstond s History of 
India, vol. l,page 12. 
Ceylon.—“The ordinary diet of the people is very meagre, con- 
sisting of rice seasoned with salt, the chief condiment of the East, 
and a few vegetables flavored with lemon juice and pepper. Beef 
is forbidden, being an abomination. The hondrew class are rather 
more luxurious, eating from five to six sorts of food, one or two 
of which consist of meat or fish. Their chief food, however, is 
rice, the other dishes being used principally for a relish.”—Prid- 
maris Ceylon, not. 1, page 263. 
The endless cocoanut forests in Ceylon provide the natives, 
with the most important article necessary for supporting exist- 
ence. 
Egypt.—“ Beef and goose constitute the principal part of 
animal food throughout Egypt. Yegetables form the principal 
food of the lower orders, and lentils are the chief article of diet.” 
— Wilkerson’s Ancient Egygt, vol. 2, gage 368. 
Sahara.—“ Dates are not only the principal growth of Fezzan 
oasis, but the main subsistence of the inhabitants. All live on 
dates—men, women and children, horses, asses and camels, sheep, 
fowls and dogs.”—Richardson’s Travels in the Great Desert, vol. 2, 
gage 323. 
Nubia.—“ We have another example of a race subsisting 
entirely upon animal food in the Arabs who inhabit the Nubian 
desert — a district which consists principally of hills, varying from 
1,000 to 1,800 feet high, and is destitute of all vegetable products 
suitable for human food. Their camels subsist on the thorny 
shrubs growing among the rocks ; and the milk and flesh of these 
animals (with salt) constitute their sole ordinary food.”—Odonto* 
logical Society Transactions, vol. 2, new series, gage 45, 12 
Abyssinia. — “An instinctive feeling dependent upon the 
pleasures of a state of warmth has taught the Abyssinians, that 
the flesh of animals eaten raw is a source of great physical enjoy- 
ment by the cordial and warming effects upon the system pro- 
duced by its digestion. The eating of raw meat, however, is con- 
sidered a luxury, and is only indulged in at festivals. They are 
great meat-eaters, however, and suffer greatly in their health from 
the difficulty of obtaining salt.”—Johnston's Travels in Southern 
Abyssinia, vol. 2, pages 175, 226. 
Dahomey.—“ The food of this people is simple, consisting of 
messes of meat and vegetables, mixed with palm oil and pepper, 
with which is eaten a corn cake called kanke.”—Forbes' Dahomey 
and the Dahomans, vol. 1, page 29. 
The Warari—“ Are small and shriveled black savages. The 
principal articles of diet are milk, meat, and especially fattened 
dog’s flesh, of which the chiefs are inordinately fond, maize, 
holicus and millet. Rice is not grown in these arid districts." — 
Burton's Lake Regions of Central Africa, vol. 2, page 273. 
Wamrima or Coast Clans.—“Their food is mostly ugali, 
the thick porridge of boiled millet or maize flour, which repre- 
sents the staff of life in East Africa. They usually feed twice a 
day, in the morning and at nightfall. They employ the cocoanut 
extensively ; like the Arabs of Zanzibar, they boil their rice in the 
thick juice of the rasped albumen kneaded with water, and they 
make cakes of the pulp mixed with the flour of various grains.”— 
Burton, vol. I, page 35. 
East Africans.—“The principal articles of diet are fish and 
flesh, grain and vegetables; the luxuries are milk and butter, 
honey, and a few fruits, as bananas, guinea-palm and dates. The 
Arabs assert that in these latitudes vegetables cause heart burn 
and acidity, and that animal food is the most digestible. The 
Africans seem to have made the same discovery. A man who 
can afford it almost confines himself to flesh, and considers fat 
the essential element of good living.”—Burton, vol. % page 2S0. 
Cabango.—“ The chief vegetable food is the manioc and 
lotsa meal. These contain a very large proportion of starch, and 
when eaten alone for any length of time produce most distressing 
heart-burn, as we ourselves experienced in coming north. I now 
discovered that when these starchy substances are eaten along 13 
with a proportion of ground nuts which contain a quantity of oil, 
no injurious effects followed.”—• Livingston's Travels and Re- 
searches in South Africa, page 455. 
Kaffirs.—“ The principal diet of the Kaffir is milk,.which he 
eats rather than drinks, in a sour and curdled state. One arood 
meal a day taken in the evening, consisting of the curdled milk 
and a little millet, is almost all that he requires, and with this he 
is strong and vigorous, proving that large quantities of flesh food 
are by no means necessary for the sustenance of the human 
frame.”—Sinland's Curiosities of Food, page 39. 
Bosjesmans.—“ The African bush men, who have but few or no 
cattle, live upon what they can get. Hunger compels them to eat 
everything, roots, bulbs, the core of aloes, gums, berries, the 
larvae of ants, lizards, locusts, grasshoppers, all are devoured by 
those poor wanderers of the desert. Nothing comes amiss to 
them.” 
Hottentots.—“ The food of the Hottentots is the flesh and 
entrails of cattle; they boil them in blood if they have any, to 
which they sometimes add milk, and this they look upon as a 
glorious' dish. They have no set times for meals, they eat all 
sorts of fruits and roots.”—Kollerts,State of the Cape of Good 
Hope, page 200. 
Europeans.—What has been said of the dietaries of the 
many peoples who inhabit the earth may be truly affirmed of the 
Europeans; they use everything and anything that will support 
life. The dead carcasses of animals are raked from the cess-pools 
and gutters of their cities, the soft parts are submitted to a chemi- 
cal process by which the fat is extracted, and eventually takes its 
place by the side of butter in the European pantry. Gelatine is 
extracted from the bones and is used in the manufacture of pre- 
serves, and the residuum of the animals goes to manure the ground. 
All parts of animals are eaten in some form or other. Snails, 
frogs and the flesh of horses are esteemed great luxuries by the 
ions vivants in some parts of Europe. The brains, blood and 
viscera are eaten as well as the flesh. They use milk of rumi- 
nants in large quantities, and make many kinds of cheese from 
the curd, pressed into many forms, which keep for a long time. 
Many of these people eat, from preference, the old cheese which 
is far advanced in decomposition and full of the larvae of insects, 14 
and esteem it a luxury. Others roll the curd into balls and expose 
it to the hot sun until it is partially decomposed, and other tribes 
form it into small bricks and bury it in manure till it ferments and 
commences to decay, as the Indian tribes of the interior of Oregon 
treat fish, and the more it smells, and the stronger it tastes, the 
greater delicacy they consider it. They make and use large 
quantities of intoxicating drinks, and are dotingly fond of 
tobacco, which they not only smoke like the Indians and Turks, 
but chew it incessantly, and draw it up their nostrils in fine 
powder. They have great abundance of vegetables, and cultivate 
all manner of cereal grains, wheat being the principal; fruits and 
roots they have of great variety, and that which they have not 
themselves they bring from great distances by the ingenious use 
of fire and water, which, producing steam, has put the products of 
the Orient into the markets of the Occident. One of their great- 
est achievements by the use of steam is their power of moving 
from place to place, and it is one of the most important, for it 
not only brings remote regions of the earth into proximity, but 
it actually in a sense, bridges over the great gulfs of time. 
Thus it is seen that instances are to be found where life is 
sustained upon a wholly vegetable and a wholly animal, and a 
mixed diet; and that there is a great diversity as regards the 
kinds of food consumed by man in different parts of the earth. 
How the elementary bodies, to be of service as food, must be in 
that state of combination known only in living organisms, for 
animal life cannot be sustained on inorganic matter; and the 
question of food and its preparation among all peoples appears to 
be no factor in the production of diseased teeth ' any more than 
other diseases, for that which will support life must replenish the 
waste of all the organs of the body, and no article can, as food, 
satisfy the requirements of life that fails to comply with this 
condition. 
If we examine tlie many animal organisms around us, we 
shall find that some are designed to subsist exclusively on animal 
food, others on vegetable, and others on a mixed diet, blow, as 
the digestive apparatus in general of these three classes of animals 
is very different, and as the construction of the teeth is in con- 
formity with the digestive apparatus, there is little difficulty in 
assigning man to his proper class. lie has, from these considera- 15 
tions, been assigned by comparative anatomists, to that class of 
animals designed in the general plan of nature to subsist on a 
mixed diet, and he is, in common with all other animals so con- 
structed, capable of sustaining life on a wholly vegetable or 
wholly animal diet; and such is the case with all animals that 
live upon roots and fruits—their teeth and alimentary canals are 
similar. Now the question arises, who are the savages, and who 
are the civilized? Where are those people whom we have heard 
so much spoken of who live in a state of nature, and “ whose 
teeth fairly glisten ?” (To use the expression of the Milwaukee 
authority.) ’ Tis a question of teeth and food ; a question of 
whether the teeth of the present period are in a worse condition 
than in former times. 
Whether 'tis the effect of food we eat 
That makes our teeth look like our meat. 
I have shown that the food of the so-called savages who live 
on a mixed diet, differs but little from the so-called civilized peo- 
ple. The Australian and the Chinese may consume a few more 
reptiles than the Europeans, and while their kitchens and larders 
may be somewhat different, the elements contained in their food 
which go to form the constituents of the body, cannot be con- 
sidered essentially different from ours, any more than the air they 
breathe or the water they drink is different. In the little pam- 
phlets issued from time to time designed as practical information 
for the people, we are told, on one page, of the perfect condition 
of the teeth of ancient skulls ; and a few pages further on, strange 
and inconsistent as it may appear, we are again informed that 
Herodotus noticed and described various dental operations in 
Egypt 450 B. C., and as though this were not enough to prove 
the antiquity of the profession and contradict the former state- 
ment, the “ tombs of Egypt, the temples of India, the sarcophagi 
of Greece, and the ruins of Pompeii are explored.and made to 
give up their interesting specimens of primitive dentistry, which 
together with teeth well filled with gold in the mouths of 
Egyptian mummies, are preserved and can be seen in museums.” 
But unfortunately the authors fail to inform their readers where 
such skulls can be found or where such interesting specimens of 
primitive dentistry can be seen. Now in order that this question 16 
of comparative tooth decay may be settled, I respectfully suggest 
that the collections of skulls contained in the following museums 
be examined, classified and tabulated: 
The collection of the Ethnological Department of the 
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. 
The Museum of Anatomy and Surgery, Washington, D. C. 
Museum of Natural History, Philadelphia, Pa. In this 
museum may be seen the large collection of human crania from 
every portion of the globe, collected and arranged by Dr. Samuel 
George Morton, author of Crania Americana and Crania Egyp- 
tica. 
The Peabody Ethnological Museum, Cambridge, Mass. 
The Abbot collection of Egyptian antiquities, Historical 
Rooms Hew York City, and a small private collection at Belle- 
ville, HI, containing nearly one hundred pre-historic skulls, taken 
from the mounds of the American Bottom, in which it is the 
exception to find a set of sound teeth. How I hold it to be inex- 
cusable for gentlemen to draw upon their imaginations for facts 
when there is so much material accessible. 
Much of the early history of the decay of the human teeth 
and of the art of dentistry I have in manuscript, but a few selec- 
tions in this connection will not be out of place. Statement of 
Herodotus literally translated from his second book “ Euterpe.” 
—“ The art of medicine is thus divided among them (the Egyp- 
tians); each physician applies himself to one disease only, and no 
more; all places abound in physicians; some physicians for the 
eves, others for the head, others for the teeth, others for the parts 
about the belly, and others for internal disorders.”* 
This is the only statement made by Herodotus in regard 
to the human teeth, no mention whatever in regard to the 
manner in which the Egyptians treated diseases of any kind. 
The art of medicine was divided among the priesthood as in later 
times, and as their priesthood consecrated dogs, crocodiles, cats and 
onions, their art in medicine could not have been of a very scien- 
tific character, as We understand it. Further, they had not 
advanced beyond the use of bronze and picture writing in the 
* “ Jam vero medicina apud eos hiinc in modum est distributa, ut sinarulorum morbornm sint 
medici, non plurium, itaque omnia referta sunt medicis. Alii enim sunt oculorum, alii capitis, alii 
dentium, alii alvi partium, alii morborum occultorum.”—Herodoti Ilalicarnassei historia Euterpe. time of Herodotus, and could, therefore, not have Avorked gold as 
we are capable of doing Avith our steel and iron. 
In the Abbott collection there are many specimens of Egyp- 
tian jewelry made from native gold, turquoise, and other gems, rude 
in construction, so much so that the commonest dollar jewelry of 
the present period far surpasses it both in variety of design and 
workmanship. I find it recorded in the annals of Tacitus, that Ger- 
manicus, being informed of a revolt in the Roman army in the 
Belgic provinces, set out without delay to appease the tumult. 
“He was, however, no sooner within the lines than the camp re- 
sounded with groans and bitter lamentations. Some laid hold of 
the prince’s hand as if going to kiss it, but inserting his fingers in 
their mouths, made him feel their boneless gums, complaining 
that they had lost their teeth in the Roman service.” * 
Thus it is seen that our “ Belgic sires of old,” as well as their 
descendants, were subject to the premature loss of their teeth. 
Among the epigrams of Martial, the Latin poet, who 
flourished in the first century of our era, I find the following 
reference to artificial teeth (such as they were) “You are not 
ashamed, Laeiia, that you use teeth and hair which you have pur- 
chased (‘ fine bought teeth ’). What will you do for an eye ? That 
cannot be bought!” f 
There is a disease of the bones known as rachitis, which is 
produced by a failure to secrete lime and magnesia, or, if secreted, 
not in sufficient quantity to give stability to the bones. This is a 
disease of childhood. 
There is another disease of the bones called mollities ossium, 
in which the repair of the earthy matter of the bone is not equal 
to the waste. This is a disease of old age. Now, in either of 
these diseases whatever may be the primary cause, they are 
clearly due to a want of assimilation or defective nutrition, in 
which the calcium and magnesium taken into the body with the 
food, are not appropriated, but thrown off with the excreta of 
the body. It is, therefore, very clear that it would be useless to 
* The works of Cornelius Tacitus: Translated by Arthur Murphy, Esq.: Book 1st, chapter 34. 
t Dentibus atque comis, nec te pudet, uteris : Quid facies oculo, Laeiia ’—Non emitur. Epigr 
XXIII., Lib. XII. 18 
administer these salts in the hope of building up a wasting bony 
tissue, if these salts were found in abundance in the excretions of 
the body. * 
Now, if calcium and magnesium were not found in the excre- 
tions of the body, these substances would, without a doubt, be 
indicated; but in administering these substances, or more properly, 
those foods which contained the largest proportion of the protein 
compounds, in which these earthy salts are locked up in a form 
suitable for appropriation by the animal economy, it could not 
be expected that they would go direct to any special bony tissue, 
much less to a series of organs like the teeth, the vitality of 
which is so far below the standard of other bony tissues, f 
From these considerations how futile the effort must appear 
for individuals to elaborate theories derived in part from the whis- 
perings of fancy and their own private practice, in support of 
the possibility of improving the condition of the teeth by a system 
of dietetics based simply upon what they see and unsupported by 
collateral knowledge. X 
* Though phosphate of lime is always found in the urine of adults, this salt is not present in 
the urine of infants. The rapid formation of the bones, in the first periods of life, requires all the 
phosphoric salts contained in the food of the infant, and nature, ever provident, has devised accord- 
ingly, for the milk of all mammals is richer in these salts than any other kind of food. Is it not 
strange that the advocates of “feeding the teeth ” should have selected wheat bran or graham 
flour, as the great regenerator of “degenerated teeth ?” 
t After a tooth has once attained its growth, there is no evidence that repair and waste con- 
tinues as in other portions of the body by a process of intussuception. Secondary dentine or ce- 
mentum may be deposited as in old age, or when a tooth becomes abraded, diseased, or fractured, 
but these kind of growths take place either internally (as in the pulp cavity) or externally (as in 
exostosis), and not from the inmost substance or parenchyma of the tooth, but upon the surface, 
internal or external, and partake more of the character of concretions than secretions. 
$ In an article entitled “Food for the Teeth” which I find in the Dental Office and Laboratory 
of April. 1882, the author states that he saves the teeth he extracts from day to day, and works 
them over for future use in the mouths of other individuals. (A system of robbing Peter in the 
hope of paying Paul.) He dissolves the teeth thus obtained in a proper menstruum, then precipita- 
ting the lime salts from the liquid he washes the precipitate and evaporates to dryness. The lime 
salts thus prepared, with the addition of syrup to make it palatable, he administers to his patients 
in proper doses. He further informs his readers that he feels satisfied from results plainly observ- 
able, that his patients have received invaluable benefit from such treatment. And thus we have 
presented to our view in the nineteenth century, a dentist masquerading in the robes of a mediaeval 
physician when cornu ustum was considered an infallible remedy in all diseases of the bones where 
earthy matter was supposed to be deficient. 
Pilus canis, swum morsum curat. 
It will now be in order for some first-class thoroughbred theorist to propose a cure for Alopecia, 
by the judicious use of properly prepared desiccated hair. 19 
RESUME. 
As there is a wide spread belief among the medical as well as 
the dental profession, that the teeth of man degenerate in pro- 
portion as he advances from a savage to a civilized condition; and 
as the literature of our owrn profession, when treating of the 
causes of the decay of the teeth, invariably attributes it to u phys- 
ical degeneracy consequent upon his artificial mode of living,” 
it is certainly time that they who rely upon this hypothesis as an 
explanation of disease, be called upon to furnish not only opinions 
and inferences, but proofs of a conclusive character for their 
assertions. 
Now, in order to facilitate the investigation, I will submit 
the following inquiries: 
1st. Are people more subject to nervous diseases now than 
formerly ? and if so, do such people suffer more from diseases of 
the teetli than those people who are not so afflicted ? Man in a 
barbarous or uncivilized condition, acts upon impulse, whereas the 
civilized man reflects before he acts, for it is only by the exercise 
of this reflective quality in man that he becomes civilized, and the 
shortness and misery of savage life must be taken into account in 
making up statistics on this subject. * 
2d. Are diseases of the teeth more common now than 
formerly ? Ancient and modern history, poetry and old works 
on medicine, record diseases of the teeth, as well as supplying 
their loss by artificial means. Pre historic skulls should be exam- 
ined and tabulated; and to be of scientific value not a few, but 
many should be so treated, for if decay of teeth is found even in one 
skull out of one hundred, the fact would be established that the 
teeth of pre-historic man were subject to decay, and further examin- 
ations would establish the degree. 
3d. Are the majority of human teeth in the present age in a 
good or bad condition? We need statistics on this subject, for by 
far the largest number of people who visit a dental office are the 
class who have bad teeth. They are driven there by necessity, 
and it takes a great advance in civilization for persons to consult 
*The savage is always in a starved or overfed condition; he has no commissariat in war or grana. 
ries in peace ; badly clothed and wretchedly sheltered, a feast or a famine is his constant lot. The 
most miserable tramp that ever infested the confines of civilization fares sumptuously in com- 
parison. 20 
a dentist in regard to the condition of their own or their chil- 
dren’s teeth, before they suffer pain or inconvenience. So that 
statistics in regard to the condition of the human teeth, based on 
what may be seen in a dental office, are of little value, yet most 
that has been said on the increasing degeneracy of the human 
teeth has been compiled from the general impressions received by 
the dentist in the practice of his profession through a series of 
years; and by careful observation and an increasing practice, he 
is forced to the conclusion that the human teeth are degenerating. * 
I am well aware that a successful practice, coupled with close 
observation, is entitled to respectful consideration as such, but for 
scientific purposes touching the degeneracy of the human teeth, 
an office practice is too limited a field of observation to be of 
value. 
4th. Are the teeth of people living in the United States 
worse, or more disposed to decay, than the teeth of people living 
in Europe ? It is a common belief that the American’s teeth are 
worse than the European’s; and some of our profession, with an 
industry little short of tyranny, have done much by their writings 
to foster this belief. They have taken no pains to formulate 
tables, but collected their statistics from the babblings of home-sick 
servant girls, and the vaporings of recent emigrants who are 
hardly naturalized or acclimated before they are afflicted with 
an “ American toothache.”! 
The same writers give to the American Indian a sound set of 
teeth (“ because he lives in a state of nature”), and the Mexican 
and South American were presumed to have good teeth, until the 
American dentist appeared among them, then they commenced to 
have bad teeth. It is also stated that the number of dentists in 
the United States shows a necessity for the dentist that is not felt 
*In a conversation on this subject with a gentleman of excellent standing in the profession, I 
was asked the innocent question, “ How is it, that when I commenced the practice of my profes- 
sion some thirty years ago I had little to do, but my practice increased from year to year, until now 
I am overworked, and I find that it is the same with others in the profession? ” He was too well 
satisfied with the explanation that degeneracy furnished, and too modest to attribute his increase 
of practice to good work and an increasing professional reputation. 
+ See Essay on the “ Cause of the Degeneracy of the Teeth,” which appeared in one of the 
numbers of a small work entitled, “ Half-hour Recreations in Popular Science,” published by the 
house of Estis & Eauriat, of Boston, and written by a professor in one of our dental colleges. 21 
in Europe; well, the necessity may exist and not be felt, and the 
folly of this kind of reasoning will not be exaggerated by the fol- 
lowing illustration: A fellow being told that a certain gentleman 
took a bath twice a week, replied in astonishment, “Well now I 
had no idea that Mr Jones was so dirty, for I do not find it 
necessary to take more than one in a year.” There can be no 
doubt that the necessity for the use of soap existed many years 
before it was compounded, and by far the largest number of hu- 
man beings now on the face of the earth do not realize the neces- 
sity of its use. 
5th. Are the teeth of man more prone to decay than those of 
other animals ? The comparative anatomy, arrangement, and devel- 
opment of the teeth of man and other animals will assist in furnish- 
ing the answer. The teeth of man are more prone to decay for 
the following reasons:— 1st. The capsular form of the enamel 
(of the molars and premolars), leaving interstices between the 
cusps which form a ready lodgment for foreign matter. 2d. The 
teeth of man are more compact, they form an unbroken arch, 
there is no interdental space between the premolars and canines 
as in other animals; and while the quadrumana resemble man in 
this particular, there is a marked distinction between the highest 
order of the Quadrumanes and Man. Owing to the greater length 
of the canines in the quadrumana there is an interval between the 
lateral incisors and the canines; with this exception the order of 
succession and arrangement of the deciduous and permanent 
teeth, as well as the earlier development of the teeth of the lower 
jaw, are the same as in man. The size of the teeth in human 
beings varies, and has no proportionate relation to the size of 
the body ; thus very frequently, small persons have very large 
teeth, while on the contrary, persons of colossal size may have 
narrow and small teeth. Large persons usually have large jaws, 
but the teeth do not correspond to the size of the jaws as often as 
the jaws correspond to the size of the body, either in large or 
small persons. There are large jaws with small teeth, and small 
jaws with large teeth ; the latter occurs more frequently in small 
persons, while the former is of rare occurrence in large persons. 
This irregularity of development of the teeth and jaws in relation 
to the body does not appear to exist in any other class of animals 
For man forms but one genus, and while that genus is the only 
one of its order, it is divided into many species. 22 
Among the permanent teeth of man, the anterior twenty are 
permanent succedaneous teeth, as they take or fill the place of the 
deciduous teeth that are swept away from the superior and infer- 
ior maxillaries. The other twelve, which are the posterior, having 
had no predecessors, are permanent, immutable teeth. Now 
the eight premolars, while they are preceded by the eight 
deciduous molars and are classed with the twenty anterior 
permanent succedaneous teeth, deserve to be considered separately, 
as they do not resemble their predecessors either in the form of 
the crown, or the length and number of roots; neither do they 
occupy as much space as their predecessors. This arrangement, 
order of succession, and development of the teeth in man does not 
take place in any other class of animals with the exception of the 
higher orders of quadrumana. 
6th. The longevity of man, as compared with other terrestrial 
animals, is an important factor in the question under consideration. 
Man hardly attains his majority when most animals have com- 
pleted the term of their existence. Aquatic animals as a rule 
live longer than terrestrial, and fishes appear never to grow old, 
but seem to enjoy a perpetual youth ; and if they lose a tooth 
by accident it is at once renewed like their scales. 
7th. Are animals under domestication more subject to disease 
of the teeth than wild animals? Of all animals the ruminants 
are those which are most useful to man. They furnish him with 
food, and nearly all the flesh that he consumes. Some serve him 
as beasts of burden, others with their milk, their tallow, leather, 
horns and other products. This class of animals cannot exist on 
anything but their natural food—herbage; and they have to be in 
a healthy condition in order to be useful. When cows are stabled 
and fed on slop by avaricious ignorant men, they become un- 
healthy and lose their teeth, not by decay (for they do not live 
long enough), but by a rapid absorption of the alveoli. 
The hog, like man, is an omnivorous animal, but when raised 
for the purposes of food, ought to be fed on vegetables, seeds and 
grain. Under domestication he lives well and raturally, but dies 
too young to determine the baneful effects of civilization on his 
teeth; very few of the animals that are used by man for food are 
permitted to enjoy but a small portion of their full term of existence. 
The horse under domestication lives naturally as regards his food, 23 
with this difference: under domestication he receives more grain, 
and his food is brought to him, and the work that is imposed on 
him takes the place of the exercise he would have to undergo in 
a wild state in his search for food. Their teeth wear down with 
age, and I have never known of a decayed tooth being found 
in a horse’s mouth. Dogs and cats live longer under domestica- 
tion than the same order of animals in a wild state; they are 
carnivorous, and owing to the shortness of their intestines are in- 
capable of living on any other kind of food ; when old they lose 
their teeth by absorption.* 
From these considerations it appears that domestic animals are 
better fed, and such as are not used for food by man, live longer 
than in a wild state ; and inasmuch as all animals, with the excep- 
tion of man, are restricted by their anatomical construction to cer- 
tain kinds of food, their diet under domestication is natural. All 
animals are incapable of sustaining themselves by forming living 
matter or protoplasm from the inorganic world, but absolutely 
need for their subsistence a food consisting of organic matter 
already formed ; with plants it is otherwise, they live upon inor- 
ganic matter only. Now the vegetable kingdom draws its food 
from the mineral kingdom, and the animal kingdom derives its 
sustenance from the vegetable, either directly or indirectly: 
directly by the herbivorous animals, and indirectly by the car- 
nivorous ; there is nothing more clear than that the consumed must 
pre-exist the consumer. Now, as all animal tissues are of a more 
nitrogenous nature than vegetables, and as the nitrogenous com- 
pounds in vegetables are found principally in the seeds and fruits 
of plants, it follows that animals who live on seeds and fruits re- 
quire more of the nitrogenous compounds, and the alimentary 
canals of such animals are shorter than the herbivorous and some- 
what longer and more complicated than the carnivorous. 
8th. Does the habitual use of superfine flour, or the use of 
any of the cereal grains deprived of their bran or husk, tend to 
weaken the structure of the human teeth ? 
The advocates of “ feeding the teeth ” on the brown-ljread 
'plan may save much valuable time, and find a solution of the 
question by considering the chemical properties and construction 
of a grain of wheat. 
* See “ Comparative Longevity in Man and the Lower Animal-1,” by E. Ray Lankester, B. A. 
London, Macmillan & Co., 18T0. 24 
Dr. Taylor asked some questions in regard to the portion 
of the grain of wheat that contains the largest proportion of the 
phosphates, and Dr. Patrick in reply gave some description of 
the structure of the grain, as follows : 
LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF A GRAIN OF WHEAT, MAGNIFIED SEVENTY-FIVE 
DIAMETERS, THE CELLULAR FORMATION TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DIAMETERS. 
1. First fruit coat. 
2. Second fruit coat. 
3. Third fruit coat. 
4. First seed coat. 
5. Second seed coat. 
6. Albuminous layer in cells. 
7. Hexagonal cells. 
8. Cells filled with starch grains. 
9. Seam or crease. 
10. Germ or seed in which the olea- 
ginous matter of the grain is 
contained. 25 
Bran proper is the external rind or skin represented by the 
five coats ; it consists of woody fibre or lignine, and is coated with 
a shining layer of flint or silica, which protects the body of the 
grain from the action of the atmosphere; and unless its continuity 
be broken the gastric juices cannot act upon the starch'"and|albu- 
minous matter contained in the cells of the grain. Now the 
albuminous layer (No. 6) which adheres so tenaciously to the 
five coats is realty the only bone of contention, not only with the 
miller in a pecuniary sense, but with the brown-bread philanthro- 
pists. This albuminous layer is made up of cells, the walls of 
which are made up of cellulose, and the thicker the cell-wall for 
the same sized cell, the less nutrition there will be, (for cellulose 
is indigestible) and that which is contained within these cells is 
albuminous matter; a nitrogenous compound which is made up of 
the proteinaceous alimentary principles. This albuminous layer 
contains no starch grains but holds in its cells from eight to fif- 
teen percent, of the albuminous matter of the whole body of the 
grain, for the interovular spaces which surround the starch grains 
in the hexagonal cells are filled with albuminous matter, and 
fully eighty-five per cent, of the albuminous matter of the whole 
grain of wheat is contained in these hexagonal cells. * 
Now if the bran, including the albuminous layer, were thrown 
away, the loss of the nitrogenous matter would be less than fif- 
teen per cent., and the rest of the grain would contain more of 
the plastic elements of nutrition or the nitrogenous or flesli-forming 
elements of food than rice or most other grains contain, and the 
♦If a quantity of superfine flour be mixed with a quantity of water and kneaded, the particles 
will cohere and form a smooth, elastic and tenacious dough. If this dough be placed upon a sieve, 
or on a piece of muslin stretched over a vessel, and worked w'ith the hand under a stream of water, 
the wrater will become milky and pass through into the vessel. If this process be continued until 
the water becomes clear, and the milky water in the vessel becomes clear by standing, a white 
powder will be found at the bottom of the vessel. This white powder is the common wheaten 
starch. The white sticky substance that remains upon the sieve or muslin is called gluten, which 
contains the nitrogenous or tissue-forming elements of the grain ; starch being the non-nitrogenou® 
or heat-producing portion of the grain. Starch is found in most organic combinations, and as ic is 
an important article of commerce, extensive manufactories for the production of starch exist in 
most civilized countries. The principal vegetables from which starch is obtained are—potatoes, 
maranta-indica, beans, sago palln, Iceland moss, peas, w'heat and Indian corn. Now as one hun- 
dred parts of wheaten flour yield twenty-five per cent, of gluten, this valuable portion of the grain 
is not thrown away, but is mixed with a double weight of flour, the paste rolled into long strips 
drawn into tubes, or made into granules, and is known in commerce as macaroni, sago, and vermi- 
celli. People who use these preparations of vegetable gluten extensively lose the desire for animal 
food. Query :—If brown-bread will perform wonders in stopping the tendency of teeth to decay, 
what ought we to expect from the use of macaroni, which is charged with seventeen per cent, more 
of the “ tooth producing elements ? ” 26 
consumer could very well make up the loss in volume, and then not 
eat as much of the starches or non-nitrogenous heat-producing ele 
ments, as the rice-eating nations do to obtain the same amount of 
nitrogenous compounds. Now it must be remembered that these 
tissue-forming elements are not found in the bran or husk of the 
grain, and the presence of these bran coats in flour impairs its value 
for food, for a grain of wheat, uncruslied, will pass through the 
whole length of the alimentary canal unaffected by the gastric 
juice, so that there is a great waste in using imperfectly pulverized 
grain of any kind, as the husk or bran partially protects the nutritive 
portion that adheres to it from the action of the gastric juice ; and 
where the bran acts on the intestines as an irritant, either in a 
greater or less degree, so does it hasten the passage of the food 
through the canal in a partially undigested condition. There would 
therefore be nothing gained in the use of the husks of the grain 
excepting where a laxative was indicated. Now the ligneous and 
silicious layers which form the cells and coats of the grain are 
insoluble, and however fine they may be pulverized, or however 
perfectly they may be cooked, when eaten either by man or beast, 
these substances will be found in the excrements of the animal 
unchanged. 
If we had to subsist on eggs alone, we should, in order to 
satisfy the requirements of nutrition, place ourselves in the posi- 
tion of the chick and consume the shell as well as its contents. * 
But inasmuch as our food is made up of a mixture 
of animal and vegetable, and the vegetable consisting 
chiefly of seeds, fruits and roots—a class that hold in store large 
quantities of nitrogenous matter, we can very well spare the husks 
of wheat, including the albuminous lajmr, for the nutritive salts 
contained in our animal food alone would more than compensate 
their loss. Take for instance the proteine compound of milk 
(caseine) which contains sulphur, besides the four elements—car- 
bon, oxygen, and hydrogen, and is remarkable for the large quan- 
tity of phosphate of lime it holds bound up within it.f 
* The body of a egg contains neither phosphoric acid nor lime, it was necessary therefore, that 
nature should provide means of furnishing both these substances, which it does at the expense of 
the shell, which becomes thinner and thinner as the process of incubation progresses, until the liv- 
ing embryo appropriates a sufficient quantity for the formation of its bones. Part of the albumen 
combines with the shell for this purpose, and another portion forms the feathers. 
+ If a persistent decomposition of the teeth can be arrested by the use of bran, or shorts, or 
brown-bread, great caution should be observed in the use of cheese. 27 
And when we reflect that all the animal tissues are 
evolved from the nitrogenous elements of food (albumen, 
fibrin, caseine, legumin, and gelatin), it follows that animal 
food furnishes a larger proportion of the phosphates of magnesia 
and lime than is found in vegetables. 
It is very natural to suppose that the primitive history of so 
important a plant as wheat would be known, but such is not the 
case, for its cultivation is of great antiquity; but enough is known 
of its origin to classify it as one of the primitive grasses of central 
Europe, and from which all the many varieties have been pro- 
duced by cultivation. The early history of the many races of 
people on the continents of Asia, Africa, Malayo-Polynesian, 
Ancient Mexico, Central America, and Ancient Peru, shows 
that these people were without wheat. The ancient Britons, at 
the time of the Roman Invasion, and the many races of men on 
the North American Continent before the advent of the European, 
were all strangers to this grain. * 
One hundred years ago it was only the wealthiest 
people in Europe who enjoyed the occasional luxury of wheaten 
bread, and the masses of the people lived on small allowances of 
oats and barley ; hunger was always present to the minds of the 
people; even one hundred years ago the United States did not pro- 
duce enough to make bread for its own people ; whereas, we now 
export annually over 300,000,000 of bushels, a larger quantity 
than was produced on the entire globe at the time our forefathers 
were signing the Declaration of Independence ; and it is only since 
we began to export our surplus food that the world has really had 
enough to eat. The struggle of civilization has been to get rid 
of the husks, but as time rolls on, the course of events become 
contradictory, for white bread has become the food of the poor, 
and brown bread has become the luxury of the rich. 
Works consulted, not otherwise referred to: 
Chemistry of Common Life, by James F. Johnston, M.A. 
F.R.S., F.G.S., 2d vol., 12th edition, D. Appleton & Co., 2L Y. 
* “Seeds of wheat retain their vitality from three to seven years; the stories of ‘mummy 
wheat,’ which is said to have germinated after remaining thousands of years in the tombs of 
Egypt, are now discredited ; the cunning Arabs have even supplied credulous travelers with mum- 
mied maize grains and dahlia tubers, neither of which were known before the discovery of 
America.”—American Cyclopaedia, vol. 16, page 587, 1881. 28 
Foods, by Edward Smith, M. D., LL.B., F.R.S., Ap])leton 
& Co., Hew York, 1873. 
A Treatise on Food and Dietetics Physiologically and Thera- 
peutically considered, by F. W. Pavy, M. IY, F. It. S., London. 
2d edition, Flew York, Wood & Co., 1881. 
Handbook of Chemical Technology, by Pudolf Wagner, 
Ph.D., Appleton & Co , Hew York, 1881. 
Physiological Chemistry of the Animal Body, by Arthur 
Gamgee, M. I)., F. K. S., lstvol., London, Macmillan & Co., 1880. 
Comparative Anatomy, by Carl Gegenbaur, London, 1878, 
Macmillan & Co. 
Comparative Anatomy of the Teeth, bv Richard Owen, F. R. 
S., London, 1840-1845. 
Animal Kingdom, by Baron Georges Cuvier, London, 1863. 
DISCUSSION. 
Dr. Black : The wheat question has been talked over and 
over, and we ought to understand it pretty well by this time. It 
has been taught all over the country, that teeth decay because we 
are civilized. I knew about what we should get from this paper, 
knowing that Dr. Patrick has been digging some in the old 
mounds and examining the Indian skulls found in them. I have 
dug some myself, and when I begun expected to find some very 
perfect sets of teeth. The first skull that I came across hap- 
pened to be that of a young woman about eighteen years of age 
just getting her wisdom teeth. There was not a good tooth in 
her mouth except the incoming wisdom teeth, and I did not find 
one perfect set of teeth in all my digging. The opinion that civil- 
ization causes decay of the teeth is a fiction. It is not necessarily 
civilization that causes decay, nor is it probable that it is the kind 
of food we eat. 
Dr. : The paper gives us enough to think about with- 
out much discussion, and it might be better to leave it so and not 
dilute it with our talk. It will attract much attention and pro- 
voke discussion when published. I agree with it almost wholly. 
I do not think that civilization promotes decay of the teeth any 
more than many other conditions in which men live, but there 
are circumstances in which we are placed and habits in which we 
indulge, that are injurious to the teeth. I believe we observe 
more of the laws of health than any savages ever did, though we 29 
often grossly violate many of them. In respect to ventilation for 
one thing; our food is often not what is calculated to nourish and 
promote health, and many habits and circumstances in the case 
of very [many persons are not promotive of health. Health is 
promoted by regularity in food, exercise, rest, labor, and by cor- 
rectness of all our daily habits. We can tell by looking carefully 
over the daily routine of our lives wherein we offend against the 
laws of health. We ought all to better observe the laws of 
hygiene. 
In many respects we have great advantages over many of the 
peoples referred to in the paper. We are not subjected to so great 
changes of temperature; are better protected by clothing and 
houses, and are not so often served with improper or scanty, or 
unwholesome food. We are usually well supplied with good 
materials and ought to prepare our food in the proper form to be 
readily assimilated. 
Savages have some advantages over us. They usually have 
fresh air and plenty of exercise and sometimes acquire a better 
developement, but that is not always the case. I apprehend that 
when the balance is struck it is largely on our side; and we are 
constantly improving. The laws of health become better and 
better understood, and many diseases are greatly modified and 
easily controlled. I believe that there is a gradual and certain 
improvement in teeth. More attention is given to them and we 
know better than formerly what care they require. 
Dr. Bropiiy asked Dr. Taft why the Swedes and some other 
foreigners have so much more trouble with their teeth after com- 
ing to this country than while they remain at home ? 
Dr. Taft : The same is true of the Irish and Scotch. I be- 
lieve it to be caused chiefly by changes in their food, mode of 
life, and climate. I have known some of them wish, and long for 
the food of their native countries. The food there being rougher 
and coarser, tends to give the teeth exercise and Jceep them 
strong. Here they use soft food and much fruit, and they are 
often negligent of cleanliness, which leads directly to the condi- 
tions and diseases which produce ' decay and destruction of the 
teeth, gums and processes. I think their remedy would be to 
maintain as nearly as possible their previous habits of life and 
forms of food. 30 
Dr. Newkirk : I live near a Swedish settlement and have a 
good deal to do for them, and I am disposed to question some- 
what these statements as to the superiority of the teeth of for- 
eigners who remain in their own country over those who come 
here. I believe the difference, to a great extent, is only apparent. 
The attention of most of them has never before been called to 
their teeth at all, and when it is here, they think these organs are 
after coming much worse than they had been in the old country, 
but in reality they know very little about it. 
They have not been used to dentistry as we have it, and 
have been in the habit of taking toothache and loss as a mere 
matter of course. It is according to my observation that the 
old Swedes, just over from the fatherland, have as bad or worse 
mouths than those who have grown up in this country. 
Dr. Hyde : In. 1862 Dr. Forbes said that he had heard that 
the teeth of the people of Europe were much better than in this 
country, and when he went over there he took pains to observe. 
He was surprised to find the teeth of the poorer classes much 
worse than in this country. 
I found the same to be true in regard to the slaves in the 
South, when down there during the war. The assertions of inex- 
perienced persons in regard to such matters are very little to be 
trusted. 
Dr. Patrick: We can place very little reliance upon what 
people tell us. Many foreigners have a great love for the old 
country and are ready to maintain that almost everything was 
better and more perfect there than here; for instance, “ What 
makes my teeth so much worse than those of my parents ? My 
father and mother have good teeth yet.” And I have had the 
same persons in a few months’ time afterwards bring in their 
fathers and mothers to have full sets of teeth made, and I have 
found that they had long been destitute of teeth. 
If you will take the trouble to examine the teeth of school 
children, you will perhaps be surprised to find that the great 
majority are endowed by nature with good teeth, and by far the 
largest number of mankind will be found to have good teeth up 
to the age of puberty, if examined. 31 
Dr. Black: There are a great many collections of skulls 
in this country and Europe, but very few of those who make the 
collections or take care of them are capable of examining them to 
ascertain the character of the decay found in the teeth. I think 
Dr. Patrick ought to examine the collections of skulls in the 
larger museums in this country with reference to the condition 
of the teeth found in them, and write a paper on that subject. 
Dr. Patrick: There are two or three good collections now 
in this country; I think some State Society ought to appoint a 
committee to visit the collection in Philadelphia and perhaps the 
ones in Washington (Smithsonian Institute) and Cambridge (Pea- 
body Museum of American Ethnology and Archaeology) and 
take time enough to examine and tabulate the condition of the 
teeth and jaws of all the skulls found there. 
It would be useless to ask the curators of the museums men- 
tioned to tabulate the condition of the teeth of skulls under their 
charge, they are only concerned in the brain capacity and the 
facial angles of the skulls in their possession; the condition of 
the teeth of the skulls in these different collections would be 
much better recorded by a committee appointed by a State 
Society of dentists than by any other scientific body, for out- 
side of our own profession, it would be next to impossible to 
find any one to perform the task as it should be, and I am satis- 
fied that any society of dentists who may appoint such committee, 
will not only reflect honor on themselves, but render an im- 
portant service to the science of anthropology that has been little 
thought of. 
Dr. Goodrich, of Missouri: My observation is, that Hol- 
landers have far more decayed teeth than Germans from the 
high lands, and people in malarious districts much more than 
those living in healthy localities. 
Dr. Black : Whenever we find men strong and robust, we 
find their teeth good as a rule. In Maine, where men grow to be 
six feet four inches high, their teeth are generally good, etc., etc. 
REGULATING TEETH. 
Dr. John J. R. Patrick, of Belleville, exhibited his appliance 
for regulating teeth and described the method of using it. The 32 
illustration and Dr. Patrick’s description give a very clear idea of 
the instrument, and the wide range of its applications will be 
readily seen. The same instrument can be used many times in 
successive cases. In describing the working of the instrument 
Dr. Patrick said, that the teeth may be likened to pieces of 
masonry in an arch, if one is out of place the arch collapses, so 
we construct an arch outside which enables us to support the 
sides of the broken arch and bring the missing pieces (the mis- 
placed teeth) into their proper places. All that can be said in 
regard to the action of this instrument on the teeth of the su- 
© 
perior is equally applicable to the teeth of the inferior maxillary. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE INSTRUMENT. 
1st. The body of the 
instrument is made of half 
round wire, composed of 
an alloy of fifteen parts 
of gold and one of plati- 
num, drawn down hard 
to the required thickness; 
it may also be made of 
steel wire in the same 
manner. 
2d. The wire is bent 
bow-shaped so as to em- 
brace with its flat surface 
the dental arch; the Ex- 
treme ends of the wire 
resting gently on the external lateral surfaces of the first or 
second molars as the case may require. 
3d. The wire is provided with slides which embrace it 
accurately, so as to move steadily; to these slides different forms 
of levers are attached, such as wedges, hooks of various lengths 
and of different elevations and depressions, horizontal hooks, 
single and double T bars, horizontal loops, and bands. 
4th. To two of the slides, which are made longer than the 
rest, a button is soldered on the external or curved side, which is 
drilled through, including the slide, and tapped to receive a 33 
screw, which screw is provided with a boss head. To each 
of the slides that are provided with set screws, a horizontal band 
is soldered, and these bands, which have been previously fitted to 
the teeth, furnish, in connection with the slides and set-screws, a 
ready means of fastening the instrument when in position, and 
form the fixed points of the arched spring wire. 
1st. Thqpower is in the elasticity of the bow spring wire (A). 
2d. The fulcrums are the fixed points (B). 
3d. The resistance to overcome is the tooth or teeth to be 
moved (C). 
4th. The fulcrums, or fixed points, can be changed without 
releasing the set screws, as for example, when the horizontal 
bands (D), which are soldered to the set-screw slides, are designed 
to embrace the second bicuspids, and the extreme ends of the 
bow-spring (A) rest on the first molars, if these extreme ends of 
the bow-spring are bent internally so as to press on the molars, 
then the second bicuspids become the resistance or the body to 
be moved; the first molars become the fulcrums, and the power 
in the bow-spring exerts its greatest influence, for the instrument 
becomes a lever of the second kind. 
5th. When either of the six front teeth projects beyond the 
arch, and the wedges (E) are brought together so as to bear on 
either of the projecting teeth; or when the bow-spring without 
the wedges is forced over them, the pressure is the same. The 
advantage in using the wedges is to increase the tension from 
time to time without disturbing the set screws. 
6th. When externally projecting teeth are to be moved 
inwards, the bow>spring is adjusted so that its flat surface touches 
all projecting teeth, and is then securely fastened by the set- 
screws and bands, the wedge or wedges are then brought forward 
and forced together from time to time until the tooth is so moved 
that they cease to act; the wedges are then separated, the spring 
taken up and reset firmly by the set-scews. If the bow-spring 
has a tendency to slip towards the gingiva, one of the slides pro- 
vided with a hook (E), or one of the wedges provided with a 
hook, snapped over the cutting edge of a tooth will hold it firmly 
in place. When, however, the front teeth are outside the arch, 
MODE OF OPERATION. 34 
the premolars, as a rule, will be found inside, therefore, in order 
to widen the arch in a lateral direction, the looped slides (G-) 
should be pressed over the first premolars in addition to the set- 
screw bands which embrace the second premolars, and the ends 
of the bow-spring bent against the first molars; this will cause 
the power to be exerted in the region of the premolars externally, 
and to a less extent in the region of the incisors internally. (I 
have found in practice that a waxed silk thread, tied first to any 
of the lateral teeth, and then firmly tied to the bow-spring, 
answers the same purpose.) 
7th. In cases where the alveoli and palatine process of the 
superior maxillary are constricted in the region of the premolars 
and molars, the bow spring wire should be first adjusted so as to 
touch all the teeth when at rest, then the looped slides, bands, 
and setscrews put in place, the bow-spring placed on the set- 
screw slides and marked, loops and bands removed, and put in 
place on the bow-spring; the bow-spring must now be expanded 
and sprung to its place, when the lateral expansion of the bow- 
spring will perform its work. 
8th. When the premolars and molars are outside the arch 
(or expanded) the bow-spring should be compressed and secured 
as before to the expanded teeth, when the constriction of the 
bow-spring will be found to contain sufficient force to move the 
teeth to the position desired. 
9th. When the anterior teeth (six front) are on the outside 
of the dental arch, and are to be moved inwards, the length of 
the bow spring must be taken up from time to time (by sliding 
back), and reset by the set-screws. 
10th. When the teeth to be moved (anterior ones) are inside 
of the dental arch the bow-spring must be let out (by sliding for- 
wards) from time to time and reset by the set-screws; and these 
changes can be made without removing the instrument from the 
mouth, as the teeth and instrument can be kept clean by the 
brush without removal. 
11th. All that has been said in the relation of this instrument 
to the superior maxillary, is equally applicable to the inferior 
maxillary. 
In evei'y instance where teeth are moved they should be moved 
slowly, and held firmly in their cells, and for a sufficient length of 35 
time in their new positions for the walls of the dental cells, and the 
walls of the dental septa to exude callous. 
As one cell wall is absorbed by the pressure of the tooth against 
it in shifting, the opposite wall exudes callous, thereby forming a 
new cell for the changed position of the tooth. For the dental cells 
grow, and are adapted to the form and size of the roots; and 
whatever position, a tooth may chance to take, there the cell walls 
will be found molded to the form of the tooth. 
In moving either of the six front teeth (either internally or 
externally) laterally, more time is required than when the move- 
ment takes place from the anterior to the posterior, as the dental 
septa receives the pressure, which includes not only the cell wall of 
the tooth to be moved, but the cancellated bone of the septa and 
the cell wall of the neighboring tooth, and the difficulty increases 
from the first bicuspid to the molars; the bicuspids having two 
fangs connate, and the molars three fangs with their separate 
cells and cell septa. 
In moving either of the six front teeth from the anterior to 
the posterior, more time is required than in moving from the pos- 
terior to the anterior, for the reason the outer wall of the alveoli 
of the superior maxillary is thinner and more flexible than the 
inner. 
The conditions which govern the moving of the six front 
teeth of the superior maxillary apply equally to the correspond- 
ing teeth of the inferior; but from the second (and sometimes the 
first) bicuspid to the last molar, the internal wall is thinner and 
more flexible than the external, which is re-inforced by the 
external oblique ridge in addition to a thicker alveoli wall. 
I have found in practice, that in shifting a tooth, a little 
inflammation, if not carried too far, is desirable, and lancing the 
gingiva on the side of the tooth where the pressure is produced, 
and where the absorption is taking place relieves the interrupted 
circulation, and thereby quickens the progeneration of new tissue. 
DISCUSSION. 
Dr. Talbot, with the help of a blackboard illustration, 
directed attention to a case in which the arch is broken on both 
sides by the loss of two or more bicuspids, and the tooth to be 
moved is firmer in its socket than the one which must be used as 36 
a fixed point or fulcrum, and raising the question, how to pre- 
vent moving the wrong tooth with this instrument. Said he 
thought it could only be done by taking measures to induce 
inflammation in the socket of the tooth to be moved, by which 
means it would become less firm than the one to be used as a 
support or fulcrum for moving it. 
Dr. Sturgiss: I have given more attention to irregularities 
than to almost any one thing. The spring of the arched wire 
can be made an important support against displacement of the 
molars or bicuspids used as fixed points. I had a case of displace- 
ment by thumb-sucking in which I had to move all the anterior 
teeth backward, and I became familiar with the forces and effects 
involved in such cases. The cuspid teeth are very hard to move, 
and require four times the amount of force needed to move a 
lateral incisor. The principles involved in these cases are strictly 
mechanical, and my experience is, that a molar will not afford 
resistance enough to move a cuspid tooth. 
Dr. Eames : “ The proof of the pudding is in the eating there, 
of,” and I know (with due respect to Dr. Talbot) that a tooth in 
similar circumstances to the one described bv him can be moved 
by this appliance, and without inflammation, having done it. 
Dr. Brophy : I do not believe that teeth can be moved with- 
out congestion of the pericementum which is one of the stages of 
inflammation. 
Dr. Eames : The physiological processes involved may be 
analogous to inflammation, but it is not necessary that they 
should pass the bounds of healthy action, that is to say, the 
absorption in advance of a moving tooth may be a physiological 
and not a pathological process, and the filling up of the socket 
behind the moved tooth, or the filling of the socket of an 
extracted tooth, must be a physiological process if healthy tissue 
is formed. 
Dr. Black: If inflammation is necessary to the filling up of 
these sockets behind moving teeth, it must be necessary to the 
building up of bones any where, and growth of the bones of 
children must be an inflammatory process, which is an absurd con- 
clusion. The action involved in moving teeth is not necessarily 
so violent as to be properly characterized as inflammatory. 37 
Absorption in the case of moving teeth may be a pathological 
process or a physiological one, but the deposition of bone will 
generally take place under physiological conditions. I will not 
say that pathological deposition may not take place, but both the 
absorption and deposition of bone in the sockets of moving teeth 
should be kept within the bounds of physiological action if possi- 
ble.