Thought Hurts Teeth

A prominent New York dentist made the statement the other day, whieh he eaid was backed by the highest scientific authority, that intelleotual pursuits play havoc with the teeth and that the more a man toils with his brain the more likely are his teeth to disappear or to become diseased before he reaches middle life, says the New York Journal. The reason why people in this country have poorer teeth than those of any other country in the world is because they live at the highest possible pitch of nervous pressure. Savage races generally have teeth superior to those of civilized races. There are many manual occupations, too, that have a bad effect on the teeth. Quicksilver miners, bleachers who use chloride of lime, people employed in soda factories are some of those who suffer. But the most harmful trade of all, not only in its effect upon the general health, but also upon the teeth, is that of making matches. The phosphorus used in their manufacture affects in some way the health of the teeth of those who handle it. Artificial teeth are made of all sorts of strange substances nowadays, but probably the most curious of all materials used for this purpose is compressed paper. A dentist in Germany has been making them in this way for many years past. Palse teeth were never so cheap as they are to-day, and at tl, e same time never so dear. They can be purchased as low as $3 per set or they may cost as high as $1,500. There are expensive dentists, as well as expensive doctors and it is nt an uncommon thing for $500 to b' paid for a new outfit of molars. 'W en it comes to expensive teeth, or, rather, an expensive tooth, probably the costiliest and most highly prized in the world is that of a sacred monkey. It is in one of the temples of Siam, preserved in a golden box. The value the natives put upon it may be judged by the fact that they paid $3,750,000 to Portugal for its ransom when the fortunes of war placed it in the possession of that nation. The Cingalese also venérate as sacred a monkey's molar, while the people of Malabar worship one of an elephant's grinders. In the Tonga islands a tooth from a shark's jaw is regarded with great reverence, and in India the faithful adore a tooth that is said to have been once in active service in the mouth of Buddha himself. The first dentiet, in fact, must have lived long before Buddha. At any rate, there were dentists in plenty in Egypt and Greece 500 years B. C, who used gold for filling teeth and golden wire for fixing artificial ones. Gold has even been discovered in the teeth of mummies known to be many thousands of years old.