The International Journal of Orthodontia, Vol. 4

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Excerpt from The International Journal of Orthodontia, Vol. 4: January-December, 1918 We get a wrong view of these things at times. We imagine that the general run of the population have malocclusion, but the fact of the matter is that there is a small proportion of the population of our country that have any particular degree of malocclusion. If you go out and begin to go around among the schools of the four classes, among the people where there are different classes, you begin to Open your eyes if you are not so prejudiced that you will not see these things. I can see things outside the walls of my office, and I have discovered there is no such number of malocclusions as I had supposed there were. In the reform schools, where we get the product of the dregs of the com munity, there we supposed we would find every sort of trouble in the way of malocclusion that could be found, and yet, to my great astonishment, when I investigated cases of that kind I found they had the finest kind of dental arches and malocclusion was the great exception. So we do not find cases of malocclusion as frequently as we have been prone to believe, and it is because Nature manages through her processes to bring about normal development of the bones of the face a great deal oftener than we think. Now, in malocclusion there are two causes that stand out above all others, and they comprise fully ninety per cent of all malocclusions encountered any place, anywhere, and at any time. The first fifty per cent of this ninety is caused by adenoids and bad tonsils. In spite of our friend's belief, it is the other way, but this particular form of malocclusion is not found unless the adenoids are there first. We have been mistaking a symptom for the cause. It is exactly the other way. Malocclusion is not the cause of anything, it is the product of something, and bad tonsils and adenoids are the cause of fully fifty per cent of the cases encountered. The forty per cent more are caused by disuse, meaning a lack of usage of the jaws and associated tissue. We have learned that through the force of circumstances certain people are compelled to use their teeth, that their jaws develop to the full size, that the dental arches assume normal forms, and there is no use for an orthodontist in that country. If you go to the museums and see and examine the skulls from various parts of the world, and notice the character of food on which these people lived, you will find in those that came from the north among the Eskimos, and lived on food uncooked, and chewed it thoroughly, the jaws developed to accommodate the teeth, and malocclusion is comparatively unknown. If you examine the skulls that come from the southwest among the American Indians, you will find they lived on jerked beef and corn and perhaps gnawed bones, and the Indian boys and girls took away these bones from the dogs to get them to gnaw, their jaws were well developed and full size. We find the jaws grow and develop by usage. Usage is an immense factor in the development of the jaws, and it is the thing that brings about the great number of full developments or practically normal developments of the jaws in this country which we do not realize are in existence because we do not see them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com