COGSWELL OX THE HUMAN TEETH. 169 



should he so afflicted with caries of tlie teeth and the decay of 

 parts formed of substances which enter into the composition of 

 some of our hardest minerals. ivJany females, ere they attain a 

 marriageable age, are obliged to resort to professional skill, replac- 

 ing the natural with the mineral, or enamel of the artists' formation. 

 This ought not to be, God made all mankind alike, in no portion 

 of the earth are nations found who lose their hands, feet, or tongue, 

 and no cause why the inhabitants should lose their teeth. It is 

 not so in olden countries, from Avhence the progenitors of the pre- 

 sent race have come, nor is it so in the West India Islands. So 

 excellent is the structure of the teeth in savage nations, that some 

 tribes in iifrica file all the front teeth, so that they shall be sepa- 

 rated and form sharp points, the better to tear the uncooked animal 

 food. The ancient Welsh took better care of their teeth by cleans- 

 ing, than many in our day of civilization. They used as a primi- 

 tive way a stick of green hazel to rub the teeth, and abstained 

 particularly from hot food of every kind, and in the fifteenth 

 century Richard the Third granted a pension to one Matthew Flint 

 for the purpose of caring for the teeth of the poor of London. 



Art and professional skill combined may assist to restore what 

 the ravages of disease may have destroyed, but unless constitutional 

 weakness of these organs be overcome, the deficiency supplied in 

 early life by the lime salts or earthy constituents, care and cleanli- 

 ness in after years, it will be impossible for the rising generation to 

 be less liable to the loss of the teeth, than those of the present. 



Among the remote causes also of dental decay, I am firmly of 

 the opinion from a large number of observations, that the present 

 condition of the teeth of the father or mother at the moment of 

 conception, v\^ill nearly always be represented to a greater or less 

 extent in the oflfspring, and the teeth of the child during gestation 

 are affected for good or evil by the degrees of health possessed by 

 the dental organs of the mother ; therefore if such be the case, the 

 greater necessity of administering more of those nutritive elements 

 which give strength to the osseous system, and perfect calcification 

 to the teeth. 



That parenrs should insist on it that their children not only eat 

 nourishing food, but also that it shall be hard, requiring consider- 



