I have watched the failure of the efforts to stay the decay of teeth by the use of various diets and various articles of food. A quart of calcium-rich milk a day does not prevent tooth decay. Feeding phosphorus-rich foods has not prevented tooth decay. Giving vitamins C and B has failed to save the teeth. The giving of vitamin pills, calcium and phosphorus tablets, etc., has failed, equally with the diets. Giving orange juice also failed. Feeding cod liver oil does not save the teeth. The result is that many dentists are convinced that no diet can save the teeth. Yet the fact stands out like a sore thumb that people on certain diets do maintain good teeth while those on other diets have poor teeth. What is the answer? Dietary adequacy and not specific dosage with one or two or three nutritive factors. The Law of the Minimum must be satisfied.

Good teeth depend upon good health and not vice versa as the tooth-extracting fad proclaims. No cause of impaired health, however insignificant it may seem to be, should be neglected if the teeth are to be preserved. There seems to me to be no way to preserve the teeth by any plan that falls short of a complete system of health building. No one-idea plan can succeed. Soundness of the teeth will be preserved by the same mode of living that preserves soundness in all the tissues and structures of the body. We must learn to think in terms of health-building. We must learn to think in terms of health of the whole organism and cease thinking in terms of local health.

The health conditions found in the mouth are local indices of the condition of the tissues throughout the body. There is no such thing as a local tooth disease. The condition that leads to decay is always systemic. More than 75% of children presenting extensive dental caries, also have other serious troubles. Instead of the decay of the teeth being the cause of the systemic derangement and so-called local troubles elsewhere in the body, the systemic derangement is the cause of the tooth decay and other mis-construed local troubles.

So long as we view the teeth as isolated isonomies and forget their relationships with other parts of the body, we cannot hope to find the cause of tooth decay and will continue to fail in our efforts to preserve the teeth. Disease of the teeth is merely part of the disease of the body. Health of the teeth is part of the health of the body. The unsoundness dentists find in teeth which they indict as cause of disease, is merely part of the general pathology of a diseased body.

Searching for a unitary cause of tooth-decay is folly. The basis of good health is, at the same time, the basis of sound structure and normal function in all parts of the body. Teeth, like the eyes, heart, bones of the spine, etc., depend upon the whole of the elemental factors of life.

Any factor, physical, nutritional, emotional, etc., that perverts or impairs nutrition will cause the teeth to decay. Poor health, impaired nutrition, perverted metabolism, however produced, affect all the structures and functions of the body in varying degrees and any effort to preserve or restore integrity that ignores the cause of general impairment must fail.

Health is the basis of sound teeth. There can be no completely sound teeth in diseased bodies. No decay of the teeth can occur in a perfectly healthy body that is maintained in this condition by first class habits. Anything that is essential to good health is essential to good teeth. As the teeth are integral parts of the body their health depends upon the general integrity.

Healing Of Teeth

Hygienists and others have long held that teeth will heal. Until recently dentists have denied this. There is no longer room to doubt this.

The teeth are bones. Bones do heal and regenerate under favorable conditions. Even the enamel of the teeth, it seems, is able to repair itself, as I have been able to demonstrate on a broken tooth of my own. Self-restoration of teeth with cavities in them have been reported by dentists within the last few years.

Limits must be recognized to the self-restorative powers of the teeth and regenerative conditions established as early as possible. Success cannot be expected, even then, in all cases.

Repair of the teeth depends, not alone upon a diet of fruits and vegetables, but upon a general improvement in health. Every factor that improves nutrition--sunshine, exercise, rest, etc.--will aid in repair.