Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1891 — A Toothless Age In View. [ARTICLE]

A Toothless Age In View.

With as there is, to say tho least, a strong and decided prejudice in favorflof luxur ant tresses and pearly teeth. But it Is only the prejudice, and by no means universal. We see no lack of beauty in the infant's naked, rosy scalps or in tho sweet little toothless mouth. Wo oven see a kind of ma ostic beauty in the ivory dome that covers the sage's busy brain. A white, shining billiard ball is by no means unp’easant to the eye, and no one can fancy its beauty Improved by covering half of it with a coat of hair, however soft and silky, lustrous, brown or golden. Birds had teeth once. How should we welcome the prospe :t of a return, a retrogression, to their former •emi reptilian condition? Would you think your canary or your brilliant-hued eockatoo Improved in its appearance if the smooth, even edges of its bill were garnished with saws of pearly teeth like a little feathered and winged alligator? The pos ossion of a full complement of teeth has always been regarded as an indispensab’e condition of perfect health. To our prehistoric ancestors, w,ho had no other grain mills than their molars, it must have been so, and the modern soldier in active service would find his hard tack and leathery salt beef rather unsatisfactory fare without the dental lntegrity-which the examining surgeon ■o properly insists upon. But the constantly improving science of cookery supplies the remedy for the civilian,»and as to the soldier, he is, like his teeth, a rolio of undeveloped civilization. The “dogs of war* must go, teeth and all. Experience has demonstrated that the luxurious diet of civilization, which gives so little for the teeth to do, is, on the whole, more conducive to vitality and longevity than the hard fare of savagery. Long before toothless gums shall become the rule alt occasions for teeth shall have pa sed, either for beauty or use.—North American Review.