Good Health and How We Won It, With an Account of the New HygieneSinclair, Upton
Science
Good Health and How We Won It, With an Account of the New Hygiene
Sinclair, Upton
Hygiene
“The mouth, with its large extent of dentate surface, becomes quickly
infested and infected with all manner of bacterial formations,
decomposing particles of food, stagnant, septic matter from saliva,
mucous and sputum, not infrequently with pus exudations from irritated
and inflamed gum margins, gaseous emanations from decaying teeth
and putrescent pulp tissue, salivary calculus (tartar), nicotine,
and the chemical toxins, or poisons, of decomposition which result
from a mixing of mouth secretions, excretions and food remains in a
temperature constantly maintained at the high normal of ninety-eight
degrees Fahrenheit. While this may seem a formidable array, it fails to
prevent any of the sources of infection connected with untreated teeth;
and incredible as it may appear, these conditions are found not in the
lower classes alone, but in general mouth conditions in high and low
born, fastidious and boor, king and peasant.”
“Try to estimate the amount of poisonous products that would be
generated if such a surface were smeared over with the various foods
from the dining table, and these allowed to decompose,” says Dr.
Alfred C. Fones,[2] “and a fair idea may be obtained of the amount of
decomposition that is taking place in unsanitary mouths. Nor is this
simile forceful enough, for the food in the mouth is in one of the most
favorable environments known for the activity and virulency of germ
life, so that the products generated would be far more numerous, more
poisonous and irritating in every action, than such products from food
decomposing in the open air.”
[2] In his essay “Clean Methods, The First Law of Hygiene.”
HOW MOUTH INFECTION SPREADS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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