Teeth

Tooth decay is commonest in the North, but relatively quite rare in the South. This latitudinal dental mystery was revealed last week in the American Journal of Public Health, by Dentist Bion R. East of Columbia University. Like most other dentists, Dr. East readily admits that nobody knows the basic cause of tooth decay, hence his geographic phenomenon contradicts no other widely held medical beliefs on tooth decay.*

Ample statistics back Dr. East's findings. In the 1918 draft, rejection rates for bad teeth, per 1,000 men, were: 102.85 in Vermont, 2.90 in Arkansas. In the Civil War drafts, rejections for bad teeth were twice as frequent in New England as in Delaware and Maryland. Preliminary reports on 1940-42 draftees again indicate, says Dr. East, that "the southern and southwestern States will have the lowest rates" of rejections for bad teeth.

> In Puerto Rico white children suffer less from tooth decay than white children in the U.S.

> Southern moppets' teeth are almost twice as sound as those of their northern contemporaries. Of 1,500,000 children examined in 1934 by the U.S. Public Health Service, the average number of damaged permanent teeth in 13-year-old boys was 3.09 in Florida, 5.69 in Massachusetts. In San Diego only 45.5% of the schoolchildren have cavities or fillings, compared with 77.5% in temperate Portland, Ore.

> Indian children on northwestern reservations are, toothwise, more decadent than those on southwestern reservations.

* Knowledge of the causes of tooth decay is no better in 1942 than was knowledge of pellagra and malaria (also latitudinally distributed diseases) in 1880.

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