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
Mouth infection, due to the teeth, sees its most critical period
during that of childhood and early youth, a period in which the mouth
under present conditions is almost entirely without intelligent care.
Children’s mouths, says Dr. Smith, are frequently veritable crucibles
in which are generated chemical agents and compounds highly detrimental
to the teeth themselves, and not less to the general health of the
child. The poisons arising from decaying food particles and decaying
teeth themselves, vitiated salivary and mucous secretions, germ life
upon the teeth and gums, and breaths loaded with emanations from
stagnant septic material, all with the high temperature of ninety-eight
degrees, insinuate into the general circulation of the blood a
constantly increasing infection, which will later on find expression in
many diseased conditions, and often in chronic and fatal disorders.
It may appear, as it commonly does, in stomach or kidneys, in lungs
or nervous system, in heart, brain, or skin, in any organ or tissue,
indeed, to which mouth toxins are directly or indirectly conveyed.
Experience has shown that it is not only possible, but entirely
practicable to arrest and prevent teeth diseases in the mouths of
children, and at the same time to keep the mouth aseptic or free from
germ life.
Not only does an infected mouth work havoc to the body of which it
is the vestibule, but it spreads disease about it. The original
experiments of Koninger have shown that in a room where there is no
current of air perceptible, a person coughing or sneezing can scatter
germs to a distance of more than twenty-two feet. They are conveyed
through the air by means of little droplets of saliva. These globules
are microscopic balloons, having a bubble of air in the center,
and remain in suspension but a short time. Ordinary breathing will
scatter these droplets to a considerable distance, but, of course,
their germ-carrying capabilities are most marked during coughing
and sneezing. The more microbes the mouth contains the greater the
danger of infection. Washing the mouth has the effect of decreasing
the microbes of such diseases as diphtheria and consumption, and
other bacilli susceptible of being scattered abroad in these salivary
droplets. Placing the hand or a handkerchief over the mouth prevents
the emanation of droplets charged with bacilli. So well is this
fact of droplet germ infection recognized, that in many operating
rooms no one present is allowed to speak during operations. Chronic
headaches, neurasthenia, constipation, coughs and colds, and many other
grave troubles, have all been helped and many times cured by “oral
prophylaxsis” or proper mouth treatment.
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