THE RECESSION OF THE JAWS 91 



cases." In many ways, therefore, human hands have 

 replaced the functions of human teeth. There is no need 

 to trace the stages in a story familiar to all. Man has 

 ground, husked, prepared, cleaned, and finally cooked 

 his food. He has freed it from hard parts, and made it 

 " tender " in every conceivable way. His canine teeth 

 he has replaced by the use of his hands; his flint or his 

 knife has usurped the function of his incisors; and his 

 molars he has relegated to the kitchen premises as a 

 pestle and mortar in some form or other. Even when 

 he had done all this he had not run the whole gamut of 

 robbing his teeth and jaws of their legitimate occupation, 

 for there is still the knife and fork of the Europeanized 

 to perform outside the mouth those duties formerly 

 performed within it. 



Every organ which loses its function must undergo a 

 change, and unless this change leads to the assumption of 

 new functions, the ultimate result will be an atrophy of 

 that organ. The human teeth, deprived in great measure 

 of their normal functions, acquire no new ones even 

 speaking and whistling through the teeth may not save 

 them from their ultimate destiny and it is not to be 

 denied that, slowly, of course, but still surely, they are 

 undergoing atrophy. Among existing races of mankind 

 the fact is patent, the observation is a commonplace of 

 anthropology. " The possession of an ample palate and 

 large well-formed teeth by the black races is a matter 

 of common knowledge (as is the fact that in the crania of 

 the prehistoric inhabitants of Europe the size and quality 

 of the teeth were superior to those at present obtaining 

 in the same geographical area). It is therefore impossible 

 to overlook the inference that reduction in the size of 

 the teeth is at least attendant (if not dependent) upon 

 the acquisition of higher grades of civilization and directly 

 upon diet and the preparation of food." 



This, from the writings of Dr. Duckworth, may be 

 taken as an orthodox statement of the general position 



