DECAY THE DOG’s TEETH. 
747 
to disease is a much misunderstood matter. For myself I have 
come to regard its presence, not in itself as in all cases endan¬ 
gering the tooth structure, but always as an invaluable index 
of the general health of the animal in question. 
We know definitely that this deposit depends not for its ex¬ 
istence upon the character of food or fluids taken by the patient, 
but rather upon conditions, but poorly understood at the present 
time, whereby the earthy salts are precipitated from their natural 
solutions into concretions having a matrix of mucine-yielding 
organic materials. 
When dogs are presented to me for examination showing 
these deposits, far from considering them as constituting a dis¬ 
ease in themselves I study their location and rapidity of growth 
as indications of the grave state of the digestive tract which has, 
it will be found in the vast preponderance of such cases, come 
about as a result of error in the mode of feeding, exercising, 
etc. 
It was formerly maintained, even by those giving their entire 
attention to such research, that perfect development and support 
of the teeth in men, and animals alike, depended upon the in¬ 
gestion of food containing abundance of lime salts, notably those 
of the phosphates, and that in this manner alone, could a good 
sound, normal denture be obtained. Careful observation, has, 
however, quite changed our ideas upon the subject, and we no 
longer can scientifically maintain that sound teeth come either 
to ourselves or our animal friends by reason of this or that cer¬ 
tain kind of food, but that the most different kinds of diet are 
capable of yielding the essentials of a perfect nutrition for the 
building up and maintenance of the teeth, provided the process 
of digestion and assimilation are in a state of perfect health, and 
that the laws of heredity have not imparted weakness to the 
formative tooth tissues, which diminishes its vital power to take 
to itself the proper nourishment which really obtains in the 
nutritive fluids of the body. 
The Esquimaux and his dog can, and do, develop upon their 
nmnotonous diet of blubber and raw-hide, teeth as sound, even 
