View report page

46
Causation of Dental Caries.
The causation of dental caries is understood more thoroughly
than that of the causation of any other disease in the body, and
it is necessary to keep three facts relative to the disease in due
proportion. Only so will it become clear to the Committee
precisely in what direction, and to what extent, they are able to
undertake effective measures to combat the disease.
Firstly, by far the most important factor in the production
of dental caries in children is unsuitability in the character of the
diet provided from infancy onwards. The immediate cause of
the disease is the accumulation about and between the teeth of
fermentable carbohydrate material. These collections are due to
(a) shape of the jaw and teeth, (b) presence of an unsatisfactory
form of carbohydrate, (c) absence of some cleansing form of food,
such as fresh fruit partaken of at the same time as the meal or
subsequently or both.
In the white races of Europe the jaws are undergoing a slow
process of shortening. This change in the jaws reduces the
jaws in size, crowds them together, and thus makes them more
liable to disease. The change is undoubtedly due to the altered
character of the food, and one of the factors in the etiology of
caries is the pappy nature of the food which very young children
are compelled to subsist upon. This kind of food does not compel
the child to exercise the muscles of his face, and the shape of his
teeth and mouth becomes irregular. In addition, another
unsatisfactory form of food in the shape of sweets lodges in the
irregularly shaped teeth. It is difficult to prevent children after
they reach school age from wasting their money on sweets if they
have been brought up on pap, for pap-feeding causes a pathological
craving for sweets. It is said that children who have been
properly brought up do not naturally like sweet things ; rather have
they a liking for fish, flesh, fruit, and fat.
Although hereditary conditions may in some instances predispose,
in the main, hereditary influences are not the causes of
dental disease, and if we get rid of harmful habits, it is claimed
that we can get the teeth back to as good a condition as 100 years
ago.