NOTES 465 



sugar, alcohol, and toothpicks, which are used not only by peoples with bad teeth. 

 Moreover, the teeth of the British race were not always so much affected as at 

 present — witness the evidence of old skulls. Thus, some years ago, a large heap 

 of skulls, dating from the sixteenth century, was found in London, and the writer 

 was assured by an anatomist who examined the bones that the teeth were little 

 affected. Apparently, then, the cause, or, at least, the principal cause, of dental 

 caries should be something which has been introduced only recently. Why not 

 (for a working hypothesis) the toothbrush ? — which is chiefly employed by the 

 Anglo-Saxons, less by some other white races, and not at all by most Africans, 

 Indians, etc. — who clean their teeth by rubbing them with chalk or dust disposed 

 on the forefinger, or with bits of green and soft stick. 



The following case is known to the writer. A man, Mr. X, has used tooth- 

 brushes all his life, and began to lose his teeth in childhood ; but all his front teeth 

 remained perfectly sound until at the age of sixty he commenced to use a hard 

 brush. At that age the gums retract, leaving a small surface of soft bone between 

 the gum and the enamelled surfaces of the teeth ; and in a few months three of his 

 incisors, namely, the three on the left side, specially liable to the friction of the 

 brush, decayed simultaneously, the decay commencing in the soft bone just where 

 the brush was likely to abrade it. 



Of course, there is a large literature on dental caries ; but the writer has not 

 seen the toothbrush accused in it. It is an unnatural instrument, likely to damage 

 the teeth, and not very effective for cleaning the interstices. When was it intro- 

 duced ? We read in Agnes Strickland's Life of Queen Elizabeth (reprinted by 

 J. M. Dent & Sons, p. 380) that " Mistress Twist, the Court Laundress, presented 

 Her Majesty with four 'tooth-cloths' of coarse Holland, wrought with black silk, 

 and edged with lace, apparently for cleaning the teeth ! " Hence brushes were 

 probably not used at that time. 



The following is possibly a sufficient process for the toilet. The gums and 

 teeth are massaged with the forefinger, on which a little Vinolia tooth-paste or 

 similar substance has been smeared, and the teeth are then rubbed thoroughly 

 but lightly with dry camphorated-chalk powder taken up on the moistened pulp of 

 the middle finger, the mouth being well rinsed, of course, with that cheap 

 disinfectant, water. 



Whatever may be the cause of caries, the discovery of the cause of it would be 

 an enormous boon to humanity. It is to be hoped that our new Ministry of 

 Health will continue and extend the investigation of the subject. — R. R. 



Astronomical Divinity 



Mr. R. G. Durrant tells the following amusing story in the Schoo Science 

 Review for October : 



There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our 

 philosophy. One evening, a junior master living " in-college : ' was visited by 

 an eminent divine, parent of one of the boys. E. D. : "I understand, sir, that 

 you are president of the school Astronomical Society, and I have come 

 to ask your opinion on a point in astronomy. I understand that the earth 

 moves round the sun in an elliptical orbit." J. M. : " That is so." E. D. : " I am 

 told that an ellipse has two foci, the sun situated at one of them, and that at the 

 other, the 'blind focus,' there is no physical matter." J. M. : "That is the case." 

 E. D. : "I am writing a theological treatise, and I have thought it most probable 



