Buffon's Natural History. Volume 04 (of 10) / Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c

by comte de Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon

As an introduction to the use of solid food, the consistency of liquid food is gradually increased, and therefore, after having habituated the child to flour and milk boiled, they next give it bread diluted in some convenient fluid. During the first year infants are incapable of mastication, their teeth still continuing enveloped in the gums, which are so soft that their feeble resistance can produce no effect on any solid matter. Some nurses, especially among the common people, chew the food first, and then give it to the child, a practice from which, before we reflect upon it, we ought to banish every idea of disgust, which can make no impression upon infants. So far from feeling anything of that kind, they as readily receive food from the mouth of the nurse as from her breasts; nay it seems to proceed, from a natural propensity, by its being introduced in a number of countries widely different from each other. We find it in Italy, in Turkey, in the greatest part of Asia, in America, in Canada, &c. I conceive it to be highly useful, from being the only method by which the stomach of children can be furnished with the saliva that is required for the digestion of solid food. If the nurse chews a bit of bread, her saliva dilutes it, and renders it more nutritious than if it had been moistened in any other liquid, yet this practice is only necessary till they are supplied with teeth to chew their food, and dilute it with their own saliva.

The incisores, or fore teeth, are eight in number, four in the front of each jaw-bone. These generally appear first, though seldom till seven, eight, or ten months. Some few infants have been born with teeth so sharp as to cut their nurse’s nipple. The original substance of the teeth is lodged in sockets, and covered by the gums, to the bottom of which it extends its roots, and pressing forward by little and little, at length forces its way through them. Though this operation is natural, it is not, however, consonant to the general laws of Nature, which constantly operate upon the human body, without exciting any painful sensation. Here Nature makes a violent and an excruciating effort, which is sometimes attended with fatal consequences. In breeding their teeth children lose their sprightliness, and become peevish and restless. The gums are at first red and swelled, and afterwards, when the pressure is ready to intercept the course of the blood in the veins, they appear white. They are constantly applying their fingers to the affected part as if endeavouring to assuage its irritation: they obtain further relief by putting into their mouth a bit of ivory, coral, or any other hard and polished substance they are supplied with, which they rub on that part of the gums that is most affected. This action relaxes the parts, and affords a momentary cessation of the pain; it also helps to attenuate the membrane of the gum, which, from the double pressure it then sustains, must break the more easily; yet this laceration, or rupture of the gums, is frequently attended with no small degree of pain and danger. When the gums are more firm than usual, by the solidity of the fibres of which they are composed, their resistance to the action of the tooth is more obstinate, and occasions an inflammation, with all its deadly symptoms. In order to preclude this, an incision may be successfully made on the gum, by means of which minute operation the inflammation ceases, and the teeth obtain a free passage.

The canine, or dog teeth, which are next to the incisores, are in number four, and commonly appear in the ninth or tenth month. About the end of the first, or in the course of the second year, sixteen other teeth appear, which are called molares, or grinders, four of which are situated on each side of the dog teeth. The periods for the cutting of the teeth vary in different children, and though it is pretended that those of the upper jaw usually appear first, yet it often happens that they are preceded by those of the under.

The incisores, the canine, and the first four of the molares, are generally shed in the fifth, sixth, or seventh year, but they are commonly replaced by others in the seventh year, though sometimes not till the age of puberty. The shedding of these sixteen teeth is occasioned by the expansion in the gums for the new set which are at the bottom of the sockets, and by their growth press out the first. There not being any beneath the other grinders they remain, unless forced out by accident, and when lost they are hardly ever recovered.

There are four other teeth still, which are situated at the extremity of each jaw, but which every person does not have. These seldom appear till the age of puberty, and sometimes later; they are called dentes sapientiæ, or wisdom-teeth, and either appear one after another, or two at a time. The only reason of there being a variety in the number of teeth, which is from 28 to 32, is the irregularity of the wisdom-teeth. Women, it has been observed, have generally fewer teeth than men.

Some authors pretend that the teeth would continue to grow through life, if it were not for their continual attrition, occasioned by the food on which man subsists, and increase in size (as is the case in several animals) in proportion as he advances in age. But this opinion is contradicted by experience; for persons who live wholly on liquid nutriment have not teeth longer than those who live on solid food, and if any thing is capable of wearing the teeth, it is rather their mutual friction one against another than mastication. Besides, they possibly deceive themselves by confounding teeth with tusks, as to the growth of the former in certain animals. The tusks of the wild boar and elephant, for example, continue to grow during life, but it is highly improbable that the teeth of either, when once arrived at their natural size, should afterwards increase. Tusks have a greater affinity, by far, with horns than with teeth; but this is not the proper place to enter into their specific differences, nor shall any thing further be added, than that the first set of teeth in children is of a substance less solid than the subsequent one, and more loosely fixed in the jaws.

It is often asserted, that the first hair of children is always brown, but that it presently falls off, and is succeeded by hair of a different colour. Whether the remark is just or not I cannot determine, but the hair of most children is fair, and, in many instances, almost white. In some it is red, and in others black, yet in those who are to have fair or brown complexions, the hair in the earliest stage of infancy, is fair in a greater or less degree. Those who give a promise of future fairness have generally blue eyes, those likely to be red have a yellowish shade in their eyes, and those who will be brown have a darker yellow; but colours are very imperfectly distinguished in the eyes of new-born infants, because they have almost all the semblance of blue.

When a child is suffered to cry too violently, and too long, it may in consequence be afflicted with a rupture, in which case an early application of bandages is necessary; with this assistance the complaint is removed with ease, without it the disease may last for life.

The limits of my plan admit not a detail of every disease incidental to children. I shall only remark, that worms, and all verminous diseases, very evidently owe their origin to the nature of their food. Milk is a kind of chyle, an unadulterated nutriment; it consists of organic and generative substances, and, therefore, if not digested by the stomach, and made use of in the expansion and growth of the body, it assumes, by its essential activity, other forms, and produces animated beings, particularly worms, in such quantities, that the infant is often in danger of falling a victim to them. A part of the bad effects that accrue from worms, might probably be prevented, by allowing children to drink a little wine, because all fermented liquors counteract the generation of worms, and besides contain but few organic nutritive particles: it is chiefly by its action upon the solids that wine gives strength, and it may be rather said to fortify the body than to strengthen it. Besides, the generality of children are fond of wine, at least easily accustomed to drink it.