WHAT DECAY OF TEETH MEANS.
IN Modern Medicine for September, Dr. J. H. Kellogg, in a lengthy discussion of "The Significance of Dental Decay," tells us:— Decay of the teeth is not purely a local disorder, but is an expression of a general disorder involving the whole body, and as such is a symptom of a depreciation of the vital resistance and the physical powers of the individual. . . . The rapid and almost universal existence of dental decay among civilized people is an indisputable evidence of the race deterioration which is going on at the present time with most alarming rapidity. The human body is naturally proof against germs. There are no parasitic bacteria which are capable of colonizing upon a thoroughly healthy organism. The tissues are all capable of resisting the attacks of bacteria when themselves wholly intact. It is only when a number of the tissues become deteriorated by neglect to comply with the conditions requisite to the maintenance of perfect health of the body, that they become vulnerable to the attacks of microbes. A thoroughly well man does not succumb to the attacks of microbes. He can not contract typhoid fever, cholera, or consumption, and I am strongly inclined to the opinion that a man in sound health will not contract smallpox, yellow fever, malarial fever, or any other parasitic disease. It is only the deteriorated man who is capable of getting sick through11the agency of these so-called pathogenic organisms. . . The same principle applies to the teeth. Decay of the teeth is not simply the result of some accident, an unusual exposure of some kind, but, speaking in general terms, it is, in my opinion, an indication that there is a general deterioration of the body, whereby the tissues have lost their power to resist the encroachments of parasitic organisms. The relation of decay of the teeth to disorder of the stomach is not more absolute than that between decay of the teeth and disorder of the liver or deterioration of other bodily organs, except that disordered conditions of the stomach are primary to a great share of the ailments to which the body is subject, both local and general. Speaking in general terms, a disordered stomach is not the result of decay of the teeth, altho decay of the teeth undoubtedly contributes to the development of indigestion in many cases; and, likewise, decay of the teeth is not directly the result of disordered digestion, but is only one expression of the general vital deterioration which results from the depreciation or vitiation of the body's mutative processes, which are the infallible result of indigestion. The lesson is obvious—amendment of life, reform throughout the whole system.