Importance of Sleeping with the Mouth Shut.
From a pamphlet published by George Catlin, the famous painter and investigator of the habits, customs, character, and ethnology of the Indian tribes, the following extracts are taken. Although there may be other and greater causes for the diseases mentioned as arising from the habit of breathing through the mouth, we doubt not it greatly assists in the destructive work, and is a very injurious habit. He says:— “When I have seen a poor Indian woman in the wilderness press the lips of her infant together as it falls asleep in its cradle in the open air, and afterward looked into the Indian multitude for the results of such a practice, I have said to myself, ‘glorious education! such a mother deserves to be nurse of emperors.’ And when I have seen the careful, tender mothers in civilized life, covering the faces of their infants sleeping in overheated rooms, with their little mouths open and gasping for breath, and afterward looked into the multitude, I have been struck with the evident evil and lasting results of this incipient stage of education; and have been more forcibly struck and shocked when I have looked into the bills of mortality, which I believe to be frightfully swelled by the results of this habit thus contracted and practiced in contravention to nature’s design.” BREATHING THROUGH THE MOUTH NOT NATURAL.
“We are told that the breath of life was breathed into man’s nostrils—then why should he not continue to live by breathing it in the same manner? The mouth of man, as well as that of the brute, was made for the reception and mastication of food for the stomach, and other purposes; but the nostrils, with their delicate and fibrous linings for purifying and warming the air in its passage, have been mysteriously constructed, and designed to stand guard over the lungs—to measure the air and equalize its drafts during the hours of repose. The atmosphere is nowhere pure enough for man’s breathing until it has passed this mysterious refining process, and therefore the imprudence and danger of admitting it in an unnatural way, in double quantities upon the lungs, and charged with the surrounding epidemic or contagious infections of the moment. The impurities of the air which are arrested by the intricate organizations and mucus in the nose, are thrown out again from its interior barriers by the returning breath; and the tingling excitements of the few which pass them, cause the muscular involutions of sneezing, by which they are violently and successfully resisted. The air which enters the lungs is as different from that which enters the nostrils as distilled water is different from the water in an ordinary cistern or frog pond. The process of arresting and purifying the atmosphere from the poisonous ingredients while passing through the nose, though less perceptible, is not less distinct, nor less important, than that of the mouth, which stops cherry stones and fish bones from entering the stomach.” “In man’s waking hours, when his limbs and muscles and mind are all in action, there may be but little harm in inhaling through the mouth, if he be in a healthy atmosphere, and at moments of violent action and excitement it may be necessary. But when he lies down at night to rest from the fatigues of the day, and yields his system and all his energies to the repose of sleep, and his volition and all his powers of resistance are giving away to its quieting influences, if he gradually opens his mouth to its widest strain, he lets in the enemy that chills his lungs—that racks his brain—that paralyzes his stomach—that gives him the nightmare—and during the following day, headache—toothache—rheumatism—dyspepsia, and the gout.” “Besides the list of fatal diseases already given and which I attribute chiefly to the pernicious habit which I have explained, there are other results affecting the senses, personal appearance, and the enjoyments of life, which, though not fatal, are themselves of sufficient importance to demand its correction; such as curvature of the spine, idiocy, deafness, nightmare, polypus in the nose, malformation and premature decay of the teeth, tic-douloureux, and many others, to which the brute creation are strangers, and to most of which the savage races are but little subject.” THE EFFECTS ON THE TEETH.
“The teeth of man, as well as the brute, are wisely constructed to answer their intended purposes through the natural term of life, and would do so, no doubt, but from abuses, one of which I consider to be the pernicious habit already explained. The saliva exuding from the gums, designed as the element of the teeth, floods every part of the mouth while it is shut, continually rising, like a pure fountain, from the gums, at the roots of and between the teeth, loosening and carrying off the extraneous matter which would otherwise accumulate, communicating disease to the teeth, and taint to the breath.” “The native races seem to have a knowledge of these facts, and the poor Indian woman who watches her infant and presses its lips together as it sleeps in its cradle, attracts the ridicule, perhaps, or pity, of the passer-by, but secures the habit in her progeny which enables them to command the admiration and envy of the world. These people who talk little and sleep naturally, have no dentists nor dentifrice, nor do they require either; their teeth almost invariably rise from the gums and arrange themselves as regular as the keys of a piano, and without decay or aches, preserve their soundness and enamel and powers of mastication to old age; and there are no sufficient reasons assigned yet, why the same results, or nearly such, may not be produced among the more enlightened races, by similar means. Civilized man may properly be said to be an open-mouthed animal; a wild man is not. An Indian warrior sleeps, and hunts and smiles, with his mouth shut, and with seeming reluctance opens it, even to eat or to speak. An Indian child is not allowed to sleep with its mouth open, from the very first sleep of its existence; the consequence of which is, that while the teeth are forming and making their first appearance, they meet (and constantly feel) each other; and take their relative natural positions, from that healthful and pleasing regularity which has secured to the American Indians, as a race, perhaps the most beautiful teeth in the world.”