170 COGSWELL OX THE HUMAN TEETH. 



able effort in mastication. If a muscle suffers for the want of 

 action, requiring its fibres to be put in daily use, so too will the 

 teeth — they require work. The mastication of hard substances 

 gives the periosteum of the roots a healthy stimulus, consequently 

 a healthy nutrition follows. 



One more fact and I have done. Dental Irregularities are 

 certainly more frequently among children of the present day than for- 

 merly ; this no doubt is also hereditary, to some extent, the parents 

 having lost in early years the molar teeth that first erupted, called 

 the six year olders. These are the first to be removed. In examin- 

 ing the mouths of 100 patients over 25 years of age, more than 75 

 per cent had lost these same teeth in early life. The principal teeth 

 removed from children are these same large molar teeth, the reasons 

 given when asked why allowed to go so far, is invariably that 

 parents are under the impression that these are the first teeth, and 

 if lost will be renewed, hence when these are lost at so early a 

 period of life, the alveolan ridge contracts, and the arch becoming 

 narrow prevents the proper development and articulation of the 

 remainder, producing as the result crowded dentures, and surely 

 early decay. This from my observations I find more frequently in 

 the city than in the country, this may be also owing to the more 

 luxurious habit of city children over those living in the country. 



It is said of the celebrated ^sop, who gave us so many fables, 

 that his master on going out with some friends on a hunting excur- 

 sion, gave him directions to prepare dinner of the very best his 

 larder afforded. On returning from the chase a dinner was 

 found served up entirely of tongue. 



On another occasion he was ordered to prepare a dinner of the 

 worst his master's larder afforded. And asrain also a dinner was 



o 



served entirely of tongue. ^sop being called upon for an expla- 

 nation of the singular transaction, said that he had obeyed his 

 master's injunction in the first instance, inasmuch as the tongue was 

 designed for universal application, and when properly controlled 

 and directed it was capable of conferring the greatest amount of 

 good, and therefore was the best thing in the world. On the othei^ 

 hand, when not controlled and directed aright, it was susceptible of 



