Bone Formation and Tooth Decay
By D. H. Kress, M. D.
Influence of Excessive Meat Diet—The Foods That Build Up the Bones Dr. Chalmers Watson, before the British Medical Association a few years ago, called attention to the influence of an excessive meat diet on bone formation. Observations made on the skeletons of over a hundred meat-fed rats, aged from one day to three months—the parents also having been fed on meat—revealed the following pathological changes in the bony structures: “The bones were unduly soft, and excessively vascular, many of the subjects showing marked curving of the bones, with curvature of the spine; and in about fifteen per cent of the series, there were small, whitish nodules in the bony parts of the ribs. Microscopically there was imperfect bone formation. The naked-eye appearances of the skeleton were in many instances similar to those present in aggravated cases of rickets in human subjects.” He also demonstrated the occurrence of similar changes in the bones of an infant aged sixteen months, suffering from an obscure disease. The child’s mother was tuberculous, and had partaken, for a prolonged period prior to and during gestation, of an excessive meat diet, for the cure of tuberculosis. The excessive use of meat in Australia affords a partial explanation of the increasing prevalence there of dental decay. It is true, the full effects of such a diet would not be seen in the adult meat eater, whose teeth were probably formed on simpler and more natural foods in infancy; but in the unfortunate offspring, these bony changes would be more pronounced. In England and the United States, tooth decay prevails to an alarming extent among school children. Probably eighty-five per cent of them have defective teeth. Tooth decay, I have found, is common in every country where meat and white bread are the staple articles of diet. In countries where meat is seldom used, and grains, fruits, and vegetables are the staple articles of food, tooth decay is comparatively rare. In Australia, among the nurses and patients at the Sydney Sanitarium, numbering seventy-three in all, I found only two who possessed all their teeth in a well-preserved state; and these—members of the nurses’ class—had been lifelong vegetarians. FLESH FOODS AND BONE FORMATION
There can be no doubt in the mind of any one who makes a careful study of this subject that the prevalent use of flesh foods is both directly and indirectly responsible for a large per cent of dental decay in all civilized lands. Little particles of meat lodge between the teeth, and encourage the growth of germs. The same kind of germs that cause decay of flesh, we know also cause decay of the teeth. The sound teeth of our ancestors may be attributed to the fact that their habits and food were of such a nature as to build up healthy bone structure. The Japanese and the Chinese, who live largely upon grains and fruits, give us a remarkable example of constitutional preservation of sound teeth. The absurdity of the theory that flesh food is necessary to supply the system with bone-making material is shown by Thoreau, in referring to the farmer who says, “You cannot live on vegetable food only, for it furnishes nothing to make bone with,” walking, all the while he talks, behind the oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstruction.” Seldom do we see or hear of swollen cheeks, or the formation of abscesses due to decay of teeth, among the animals that are left free to select and eat the foods furnished by the vegetable kingdom. This is conclusive proof that all the elements needed are stored up in these foods. The prevalence of dental decay is not wholly due to flesh lodging between the teeth, forming culture beds for bone-destroying germs, but chiefly to the fact that the flesh foods themselves are deficient in bone-forming elements. A little thought will convince the most skeptical of this. After the vegetarian animal has eaten the food containing both muscle-forming and bone-forming elements, this food is digested and absorbed, the bone-forming elements stored up as bone, while the muscle-forming elements are stored up as muscle. Beefsteak, therefore, being composed of muscle, contains only the muscle-forming elements. The bone-forming elements are absent. It is the quality of the dental structure that is at fault. Teeth decay for the same reason that fruits decay. When fruit decays on the tree, we recognize that the tree is poorly nourished, or that some needed element is lacking in the soil. The intelligent gardener begins to dig around the tree, and adds to the soil the elements it needs to nourish the tree properly. This is the only way to improve the fruit. DEFICIENCY OF BONE-FORMING ELEMENTS
Dental decay exists because the bone-forming elements are deficient in the food that is eaten. To remedy this evil, we should proceed just as intelligently as does the gardener. We must change the nature of our food, and supply the elements that are lacking. Until this is done, dental decay will continue, in spite of the multiplication of dentists, and vigorous use of toothbrushes, pastes, and powders. Monkeys use no tooth pastes or brushes, yet they possess remarkably fine teeth. It would be well for civilized man to study the dietetic habits of this creature that so closely resembles man. Dr. Winters says: “One of the most unfortunate consequences of an early and liberal meat diet is the loss of relish it creates for the physiological foods of childhood,—milk, cereals, and vegetables. Meat, by its stimulating effect, produces a habit as surely as does alcohol, tea, or coffee, and a distaste for less satisfying foods. The foods which the meat-eating child eschews contain in large proportions certain mineral constituents which are essential to bodily nutrition and health, and without which the processes of flesh growth and development are stunted.” “These mineral constituents,” he goes on to say, “cannot be introduced into the system in an assimilable form except in organic combination with an albuminous molecule; and in such combination they are found in sufficient proportion to meet the child’s needs only in certain vegetables, fruits, and cereals.” Dr. C. Rose, of Munich, in his examination of 7,364 pupils at the Freiburg schools, discovered that the best teeth and the least tooth decay were to be found in the districts that contained hard water, and in which the446soil was rich in lime. In places where lime poverty existed in the soil, there were nearly twice as many bad teeth among the children. Dr. Neisler also states that in a certain district where quantities of ground lime were strewn over feeding places where the soil was poor in lime, the deer that fed upon the grass of such fields possessed finer horns than those which fed in fields that were not so treated. THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM SUPPLIES IT
The vegetable kingdom serves a useful purpose. It is capable of dissolving and appropriating these earthy salts, and organizing and vitalizing them, thus preparing them for man’s use. In districts where soils and water are poor in lime, the grains, the fruits, and the vegetables are necessarily poor in organized salts, or bone-forming elements; and naturally one would expect dental decay to be more common in such districts—not, however, because of the absence of these salts in soil or water, but because of their consequent absence in food. DEFECTS IN MODERN MILLING
Dental decay is due to the absence of salts in the foods. It does not matter whether these salts are naturally deficient in the food, owing to a lack of earthy salts in the soil upon which the food is grown, or to the fact that they have been afterwards removed by our modern process of milling or cooking. Dr. Bunge says, “It is remarkable that wherever we find a race of men retaining primitive milling customs, or living on uncorrupted grain food, we find their teeth strong and free from decay.” Baron Liebig estimates that “whole-meal bread contains two hundred per cent more phosphates than white bread.” America is supposed to have clever dentists. To the question why this is so, Dr. Lauder Brunton aptly replied, “Because she has the best flour-mill makers.” It seems, the better the mills, and the whiter and finer the flour, the poorer the bread, and, naturally, the worse the teeth, and the better the dentists. It is not necessary to depend upon our modern mills for this partially devitalized flour. Each family may purchase a hand mill at a small cost, and grind their own flour, make their own cracked wheat for porridges, etc. Those who adopt this plan will be surprised to find a sweetness in the preparations and breads, that is not present in breads made of flour obtained from the grocer. A double purpose is served—not only do we obtain the needed salts, but the satisfaction imparted to the palate encourages longer retention of foods in the mouth, a more copious flow of saliva, and more thorough mastication. The maltose formed by the action of saliva upon the starch aids in dissolving the organized salts present in the breads. In the absence of maltose, these salts, even if present, are imperfectly utilized. This is in part responsible for rickets, and other bone deformities, so prevalent in pap-fed children. The free use of mushes and other pastry foods produces lime starvation, and favors tooth decay, the same as does the pap. Not only does thorough mastication encourage a freer circulation of nutrients to the gums and the teeth, but the maltose formed enables the system to utilize the bone-forming elements the foods contain. Unquestionably the two important factors in teeth preservation are the presence of bone-forming elements in the food, and thorough mastication.