Dental Disease in Hawaii

Abstract

In reading the literature on the subject of tooth decay, a subject which is becoming increasingly interesting and important to biologists and medical men, as well as to dentists, one gains the impression that the development of bone and that of teeth go "hand in hand," and that any factor which affects the one affects the other in the same direction and to the same extent. We have been unable to find any reports on the relationship of these two tissues in infants. The impression that has gotten into the literature and the mind of the public, we believe, is largely due to the writings of Mrs. May Mellanby, whose studies on tooth decay, a process which primarily involves enamel, have been largely devoted to a microscopic study of dentin.An observation was made by one of us (M. R. J.) some years ago,1 that a type of surface disintegration of enamel, called odontoclasis, often occurred in the teeth of puppies during recovery from rickets, but never, in the series of experiments conducted, during the active phase of the disease. The lesion was observed most often when therapeutic measures for rickets were introduced at the time of eruption of the permanent teeth. While the condition of the bone was rapidly improv¬ ing, the enamel of the teeth would sometimes undergo rampant disinte¬ gration, all surfaces of all the teeth being more or less denuded in a short time. On the other hand, while the bone and dentin were under¬ going profound degenerative changes, the enamel remained intact. In one extreme case in which the clinical symptoms of rickets were marked and the mineral content of the intact bone was 11.2 per cent (in the nor¬ mal new-born puppy it is about 17 per cent), the permanent teeth, although apparently sound, were little more than enamel caps loosely attached to the gum, the underlying dentin and cementum having been

Dental Health: A Problem in Nutrition

“…Bactériologie, also having to do with local factors; a thread-like organism, as typified by Cladothrix placoides and Leptothrix buccalis, fastens to a convenient tooth surface and a bacterial plaque commences, which B. acidophilus finds a suitable place for growth. 3. The condition of the saliva, providing a favorable environment for bacterial activity.…”