TEETH 



149 



Now count your teeth, and ask your father to let 

 you count his teeth too. He ought to have thirty-two 

 altogether. Probably some of your baby teeth have fallen 

 out, but when you were six years old you had ten teeth 

 above and ten below. Just now 

 you are getting your new teeth, 

 and they must last the rest of your 

 life, for when the second teeth are 

 gone, no others will come to take 

 their place, and false teeth are a 

 nuisance. 



Look carefully and you will see 

 that each tooth has one just like it 

 on the opposite side of the same jaw. AFTER THE TEETH WERE 



The shapes of your front teeth STRAIGHTENED 

 and your back teeth are different, as they have different 

 kinds of work to do, but every tooth in the world is 

 made in the same way. The soft part is in the center, 

 and that is where the nerves are also. It is called the 

 "pulp." Hard bone is around it, while outside of all 

 comes the enamel. This is the hardest thing in the body, 

 yet it is the only part of the tooth we have to be care- 

 ful about. We must do two things to preserve it. 



1. Keep it clean. 



2. Keep it from getting cracked or broken. 



The reason for both these directions is the same: we 

 must save our teeth from the microbes. 



