The Effect of Exercise upon 
the Teeth. 
RT 
A. HUGH HIPPLE, L. D. 8., D.D.S., 
OMAHA. 
REPRINTED PROM THE 
Weto Yorft f&etifcal Sourttal 
for June 16,1894- Reprinted from the New YorJc Medical Journal 
for June 16, 189 f 
THE EFFECT OF EXERCISE UPON THE TEETH. 
By A. HUGH HIPPLE, L. D. S., D. D. S., 
OMAHA. 
The action of the American Medical Association in 
establishing a dental section, and thereby recognizing den- 
tistry as a specialty of medicine, has not only conferred 
dignity upon that calling and secured for its practitioners 
recognition as professional men, but it has also furnished 
them with an incentive to familiarize themselves with those 
broad principles that underlie the practice of medicine. On 
the other hand it has called the attention of physicians to 
the fact that the condition of the teeth has much to do 
with the condition of the general system, and patients are 
nowadays referred by them to the dentist quite as frequent- 
ly as to the surgeon. But although physicians are begin- 
ning to recognize the seriousness of diseases of the teeth, 
and to impress upon their patients the importance of hav- 
ing them promptly attended to whenever they show signs 
of decay, the fact that a rapid deterioration of these organs 
is now going on and that serious results are likely to follow 
this deterioration has been almost entirely overlooked. A 
little inquiry and investigation, however, must convince 
Copyright. i894, by D. Appleton and Company. 2 
THE EFFECT OF EXERCISE UPON THE TEETH. 
any one that such a change for the worse is taking place. 
Children rarely have as good teeth as their parents had at 
the same age, but on the contrary their teeth are often 
almost hopelessly decayed before the dentures of their 
parents show signs of impairment. A century ago the city 
of New York, with a population of about fifty thousand, 
had only one dentist, and although much less attention was 
paid to the teeth then than is paid to them now, there is 
abundant evidence to show that our forefathers had better 
teeth than we have. Dr. Hammond tells us that the com- 
ing man will be hairless and toothless, and the tendency 
certainly seems to he in that direction. The conservation 
of the natural teeth is the end toward which every intelli- 
gent and conscientious dentist directs his efforts, but if the 
quality of the teeth continues to deteriorate the replace- 
ment of lost dental tissue must gradually give way to the 
replacement of lost dental organs. Every physician knows, 
of course, that this would not be conducive to health, but 
that medical men generally do not realize how important a 
bearing the condition of the teeth has upon the health and 
longevity of an individual is shown by the fact that in ex- 
amining applicants for life insurance no question regarding 
the condition of the mouth is ever asked. The teeth may 
be so badly decayed that the proper mastication of food is 
impossible, the saliva may be vitiated, the gums and alveoli 
may be the seat of abscesses that are continually discharg- 
ing pus, but these conditions do not concern the examining 
physician. Probably not one in a thousand, in reporting 
upon the application of a man twenty-five years of age, 
would think of mentioning the fact that he had lost, say, 
all his upper teeth and half his lower ones, although after 
giving it a little thought few would probably care to dis- 
pute the statement that the loss of the teeth before the 
twenty-fifth year will on an average shorten the life of an THE EFFECT OF EXERCISE UPON THE TEETH. 
3 
individual by at least several years. If this be true, no 
apology is needed for calling the attention of medical men 
to the dental deterioration that has been referred to, for 
discussing its probable causes, and for suggesting possible 
remedies. 
In endeavoring to ascertain why it is that imperfect 
dentures are so common and dental diseases so alarmingly 
prevalent, it must be borne in mind that although the teeth 
are vital organs, developed and nourished very much like 
the other organs of the body, they differ from them widely 
in susceptibility to disease. While other organs may- be 
delicate early in life and afterward become quite strong 
and healthy, or vice versa, the teeth, if not impaired by dis- 
ease, remain the same, with the exception, perhaps, of a 
slight increase of density as age advances. All the other 
organs of the body, too, including the bones, are endowed 
with recuperative powers whereby injuries are to a greater 
or less extent repaired; but the teeth possess no such at- 
tributes, and are apparently governed by somewhat different 
laws from those that regulate other parts of the animal 
economy. Teeth that are perfect in form and structure 
are rarely if ever attacked by decay. It is only where the 
enamel is defective that dental caries can obtain a foothold. 
As the teeth are developed early in life, it is during child- 
hood that those influences are exerted which by interfering 
with their development predispose them to disease, and il 
is to childhood, therefore, that we must look for the causes 
of dental deterioration. 
Scientists tell us that use and disuse have much to do 
with the development of organs, and that with the prog- 
ress of civilization the brain has increased and the jaws have 
decreased in size. The wisdom teeth from disuse have de- 
generated and become rudimentary ; the canines, being no 
longer needed to tear flesh from the bone and do other  THE EFFECT OF EXERCISE UPON THE TEETH. 
4 
heavy work, have become smaller and less prominent; the 
teeth in general have become soft and chalky and very sus- 
ceptible to decay. This, they say, is the result of the sub- 
stitution of soft, well-cooked food for that which required 
vigorous use of the teeth and masticatory muscles, and as 
there seems to be no likelihood of civilized man going back 
to primeval methods of preparing food, the inference is that 
dental deterioration is one of the prices we are obliged to pay 
for a high state of civilization. But use and disuse not only 
modify the size and structure of organs when persisted in 
for a series of generations, but their effect upon the organs 
of any one individual are no less marked. Tie up an arm so 
that it can not be used, and the muscles will soon become 
soft and flabby and will eventually disappear. Lock up a 
child in a room by itself with nothing to occupy its thoughts, 
and it will in time become an imbecile. It appears that a 
certain amount of exercise is essential to the development 
of most organs. A part when performing work requires 
and receives more blood than when at rest, and if much 
work is performed the blood-vessels increase in size and 
the part is better nourished. That a close relationship ex- 
ists between development and nourishment, and between 
nourishment and exercise, is a fact so well known that it 
need not be discussed here ; but so far as the study of the 
teeth is concerned the principle has been applied to the 
race rather than to the individual. It is undoubtedly true 
that what the people of a country eat for eight or ten gen- 
erations will determine in a general way the size and shape 
of their jaws and the form and structure of their teeth at 
the end of that time ; but it is probably no less true that 
what a child eats up to the time he is eight or ten years of 
age will determine just as certainly what will be the condi- 
tion of his dental organs for the rest of his life. If the 
food of the child is such as requires vigorous use of the THE EFFECT OF EXERCISE UPON THE TEETH. 
5 
jaws, the blood supply will be liberal, the parts will be well 
developed, and the teeth will not be likely to suffer from 
decay. On the other baud, if the child is fed on soft food, 
requiring little or no active mastication, the jaws and teeth 
will be poorly nourished, and the latter at least will be de- 
fective in structure. Erupted into the mouth in that con- 
dition, no amount of care can protect them from the ravages 
of decay, which will sooner or later impair their usefulness 
and mar their beauty. 
It must he remembered in this connection that although 
none of the temporary teeth make their appearance in the 
mouth until a child is five or six months of age, their crowns 
are almost fully developed at birth, and that the jaws of a 
newly born child also contain the germs of twenty-four of 
the permanent teeth in various stages of development. 
These permanent teeth do not begin to erupt until the 
child is about six years of age, but during that time the 
process of calcification is continually going on. With the 
first molars, the incisors, and the canines it is well started 
by the end of the first year; with the bicuspids, at the end 
of the second year; and with the second molars at about 
the fifth year. It will thus be seen that between the sec- 
ond and fifth years this process of calcification upon which 
depends the future character of the teeth is in most active 
progress. Nature intended that during this period the 
jaws and teeth should be well exercised, and to that end 
provided the child with a perfect temporary set of teeth, 
hut, as a matter of fact, they are used but very little com- 
pared with the other organs of the body. The muscles of 
the arms, legs, and head are in almost constant use, and are 
consequently always well supplied with blood. The brain 
is wrestling with the problems of life as they present them- 
selves, and it too is being exercised and developed. The 
eye is being trained to examine every object, and the ear 6 
THE EFFECT OF EXERCISE UPON THE TEETH. 
to catch the slightest sound, but the teeth are hardly used 
at all. Nine out of ten mothers feed their children of that 
age on soft food. Bread made from fine Hour, biscuits 
soaked in tea or milk, meat cooked tender and cut into 
small hits, with potatoes and other vegetables in such a 
condition that they require little or no mastication, form 
the chief food of the little three-year olds. Not being 
actively exercised, the teeth and jaws need but a small 
quantity of blood, and, owing to the imperfect development 
that results from insufficient nourishment, they are unable 
to resist the attacks of the pathogenic germs that are al- 
ways present in the mouth, and which eventually destroy 
them. 
The remedy is in the hands of parents. If they will 
see that their children, at the earliest possible age, use 
their first teeth vigorously, they need have little anxiety in 
regard to the second set. In other words if a demand is 
created for sound, solid teeth, Nature will be almost cer- 
tain to supply them. It is by no means difficult to teach 
children to chew their food. Nothing pleases small chil- 
dren more than to be allowed to nibble a hard biscuit or 
bite the meat from a bone. Nature prompts them to exer- 
cise their teeth in that way, just as it prompts a puppy 
to spend hours gnawing at a bone which has long since 
been stripped of its meat. But the average mother, part- 
ly, no doubt, out of respect to dainty dresses and well- 
kept carpets, but more particularly from fear of possible 
injury to the teeth themselves, objects to the dental calis- 
thenics in which the child would gladly indulge, and 
thereby unconsciously opposes the efforts of Nature to de- 
velop good teeth. Since teeth that are perfect in structure 
rarely if ever decay, an ounce of prevention in the way of 
developing healthy dental organs is certainly worth more 
than a pound of cure after they are diseased, and if parents THE EFFECT OF EXERCISE UPON THE TEETH. 
7 
will supply their children with an abundance of bone-pro- 
ducing food, see that the teeth are kept clean, have them 
examined and attended to from time to time by a compe- 
tent dentist, and, above all, have them well exercised by 
chewing hard food, Nature will do her part, and their 
children in after years will rejoice in the possession of 
that almost priceless endowment, a beautiful and complete 
set of teeth. 
311 Brown Block. The New York Medical Journal. 
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