Naturally the teeth form an almost even edge. There is no appreciable space between them. They are of a pure ivory white colour, and they are thirty-two in number. Very few of us, unfortunately, have our teeth in the natural condition. Too often, alas, do we lose one or two before growth is completed, and how few of us keep a respectable complement of teeth to the end of our three-score years and ten?
The reason why our teeth are so bad is partly due to our own faults and partly due to our civilisation.
You never saw a savage whose teeth were either decayed or missing. Yet, as far as I know, no uncivilised person ever used a toothbrush. But, with ourselves, unless we use a toothbrush our teeth rapidly decay. What is the cause of this? It must be something in our civilisation. This we cannot alter. But we can preserve our teeth in face of their tendency to decay by a little care.
There is not one person in ten who knows how to keep her teeth really clean. You get up in the morning, and when you have dressed yourself you scrub your teeth with a hard brush, using some indifferent powder. This you consider is sufficient attention to the teeth for the day. Suppose that your work consisted of handling greasy bones all day, do you think your hands would remain clean if you only washed them once a day? The teeth have very dirty work to do, and they will not remain clean if only washed once a day. As a matter of fact your teeth will only remain clean till you have had breakfast—about ten minutes during the twenty-four hours.
This system of looking after the teeth is radically wrong. The teeth must be washed more than once a day. It is better to clean your teeth after every meal. This is often inconvenient, but they should certainly be cleaned at least twice a day, and always before going to bed. If the teeth are cleaned before going to sleep, they will remain clean throughout the night.
How any person can use a stiff toothbrush is beyond my comprehension. "Oh, but I cannot get my teeth clean if I use a soft brush!" Of course you cannot get your teeth clean if you only wash them once a day. Use the softest badger brush you can get, and gently wash your teeth twice or thrice a day instead of tearing your gums once a day with a hard brush. You must never make your teeth bleed. If you tear your gums every morning, can you wonder that your teeth get loose and decay? Whenever blood comes from the gum surrounding a tooth, it comes from a tear. That tear must be repaired by inflammation of the gum, and all inflammation around a tooth tends to loosen the tooth and causes it to die.
Any good tooth-powder may be used. A powder containing an antiseptic is better than any other. Carbolic acid toothpowder is the best of all. The powder should also contain some grit to give it a good "grip." Precipitated chalk alone is not a good powder, but it is an excellent basis for an antiseptic.
Sometimes the teeth get coated with "tartar." As the deposit gets thicker it tends to lever the tooth out of its socket. It has also an unsightly appearance and often gives the breath a bad smell, from particles of food getting beneath it and decomposing. If there is a considerable amount of tartar on your teeth, have the teeth scaled; it is not an expensive business, and well repays the fee and few minutes discomfort that it costs.
If it were only for their nasty appearance, decayed teeth should be treated at once. But besides being unsightly, they are a real danger to health. Have them stopped or extracted.
When a tooth falls out or is extracted, it leaves a gap. This gap gets smaller in time because the other teeth fall together to fill up the space. This causes a most disfiguring condition by leaving a small space between each tooth. When you have had a tooth extracted, have it replaced immediately by a false one, so that your teeth may form an even line without any gap between them.