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29
FOODSTUFFS WHICH ARE
CLEANSING AND PREVENT DENTAL CARIES.
Fibrous foods generally.
Examples: Fish, meat, bacon, poultry, uncooked vegetables, lettuce,
cress, radish, celery. Cooked vegetables are as a rule cleansing, but in
a less degree than uncooked vegetables.
Stale bread with crust; toasted bread of all kinds; twice baked
bread ; pulled bread and cheese.
Savouries. Fresh fruits, especially those requiring mastication,
e.g., apples, fatty foods, e.g., butter and margarine.
Liquids: Tea, coffee, water, also soups and beef tea.
Footgear of Children.
It is to be hoped that in the near future rational footgear will
develop on lines as sensibly hygienic as other forms of dress have done
and that pointed toes and high heels, for children especially, will go out
of favour.
Among the evils resulting from high heels and pointed toes are flat
foot, with its ungainly gait, and bunions. If the foot of an infant be
examined before it is distorted with tight-fitting stockings and worse
shaped shoes, the inside of the foot from the point of the toe to the heel
will be seen to form not a straight line only but a curve. The inside
line of the sole is hollowed or concave, and the great toe is separated
from the others. Again, from the ball of the great toe to the heel the
sole is arched, and the arch is kept up even when the weight of the body
is supported on it, by ligaments which bind the under surfaces of the
bones, and by the tendon of a muscle of the calf which passes along the
sole. In walking, when the foot is bare, or when the footgear is
properly shaped, the walk is " heel and toe," and the contraction of the
calf muscles, which raises the heel at the same time by the action of
the tendon, keeps up the arch of the foot. When shoes with pointed
toes are worn, the point of the great toe is forced towards the middle
toes, and the inside side line of the sole, instead of being hollowed,
becomes rounded. In walking, the toes tend to turn outwards, giving
splay foot, the calf muscles do not need to contract as strongly, and the
arch gradually sinks, and the walk becomes a clumsy shuffle. Where
extreme forms of this occur in people with heavy bodies and relaxed
muscles, especially if they have much standing, flat foot is common,
and many people have flat foot and its attendant discomforts without
their being conscious of the cause. Often a dull ache on the inner side