The Influence of Teeth, Diet, and Habits on the Human Face

D. M. Davies

• Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780433071600
• eBook ISBN:
  9781483192826
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Surgery & Surgical Medicine

The Influence of Teeth, Diet, and Habits on the Human Face discusses the relation between dental health, diet, and habits to the facial characteristics of humans. The book is comprised of 12 chapters that cover the various aspects of the relationship of the said variables. The text first compares the facial traits of primitives and civilized peoples, and then proceeds to differentiating the characteristics of primitive and modern diets. The next chapter discusses disparity between meat and vegetable diet. The next five chapters deal topics related to dental health, such as tooth diseases among primitive tribes, establishing racial links through analyzing teeth, and some unusual dental customs. The remaining three chapters present the conclusion, review of related literature, and methodology of the study. The book will be of great interest to dentists, physicians, anthropologists, and sociologists.

Chapter 1

THE FACIAL TRAITS OF PRIMITIVE AND CIVILIZED PEOPLES COMPARED

Including notes on facial links between ancient and modern primitive peoples

Publisher Summary

This chapter discusses facial links between ancient and modern primitive people. There are similarities in the facial features of Bronze Age ancestors and the Red Indians of the last century, if followed what their skulls indicate. In the following ways there are remarkable similarities: (1) the palates and the jaws are similarly broad, (2) at the angle of the jaw, there is splaying of the flange that is common to both, and (3) the molars have something of the same pattern, for they are of the same size rather than one predominating over all the rest or graduating in size from the first to the third molar and there is almost room for a fourth molar in the maxillary jaw. This is only found in the Red Indian and the Bronze Age jaw. One of the reasons for these similarities may be that they subsisted upon a similar diet. The pattern of attrition with the Bronze Age people is the same as found with the Red Indians and there are similar signs of the healed caries and the covering of heavy attrition with secondary dentine for the protection of the pulp cavities.

MANY of the diets of the primitive people mentioned in the tables, for example (the Land Dyaks and the Malays), see page 22ff., are based on carbohydrates, yet these peoples were practically caries-free in the nineteenth century. If we studied their teeth today it would be a different story, in fact almost the exact opposite, as found by workers like Laband¹ who reports on a year’s work and then another after a ten year interval in Borneo. The years between indicate that the trend to decay had set in. In the towns the incidence of dental caries was similar to that which could be found in any Western town of the same size, while at various distances away from town contact in the up-country regions—there were found corresponding stages of caries experience. Yet the basic diets of the people in the town and the country of that region were similar. The children are still fond of sweetness, but instead of the pith of the sugar cane there are sweets, cakes and candies for the urban children to eat. The main item of the diet is still rice, but polished rice. These are all carbohydrates, but with the important difference—they are refined carbohydrates. And white bread is often thrown in for good measure. Anyone who has lived in these areas will notice that since the arrival of the white man the fashion has been to go in for other things white; especially white bread and white rice. The deterioration in the dental health was very great.

While in the Far East the writer had great difficulty in obtaining brown or unpolished rice; the opportunity occurred only once. The excuse was that the brown rice was fed only to prisoners. Westons, the Canadian bakery firm that has recently started factories in South-East Asia, say there is no call for brown bread. The tables help to bear out the fact that carbohydrates as such are not a primary cause of caries experience.

Facial links between Ancient and Modern Primitive Peoples

There must have been several similarities in the facial features of our Bronze Age ancestors,¹ and the Red Indians of the last century, if we follow what their skulls indicate.

In the following ways there are remarkable similarities:

(1) The palates and the jaws are similarly broad.

(2) At the angle of the jaw there is splaying of the flange that is common to both. (Plate V, c.)

(3) The molars have something of the same pattern, for they are of the same size rather than one predominating over all the rest, or graduating in size from the first to the third molar, there is almost in fact room for a fourth molar in the maxillary jaw. This is only found in the Red Indian and the Bronze Age jaw. (Plate V, a.)

One of the reasons for these similarities may be that they subsisted upon a similar diet. The Bronze Age people survived on a hunting and food gathering diet, and the growing of a little grain, we know this as plough lines can be seen through where they placed their barrows, indicating that the land was under the plough before the burial mound was erected. The Iroquois had the same way of life, with the exception of growing maize instead of grain.

Shovel shaped incisors are considered a Mongolian trait, yet this type of incisor is found in the early peoples of Europe, for example, Bronze Age indicating origins in Mongolia. (Plate III, c.)

Many of the Bronze Age people had very prominent mental eminences,² in fact finely ‘chiselled’ chins, and there was no sign of any primitive feature about it. If the middle third of the face can change so greatly³ in one generation, and the whole head shape of the Americans (U.S.) can change and become uniform (Keith) in three generations, then what may be possible in thirty!

The Australian aborigine and some of the New Guineans have deep set eyes and heavy eyebrow ridges, this is a feature prominently found also in Early Man. In the cases of Early Man and the Tierra del Fuegans, it was to protect the eyes from the terrible elements. Similarly, with the New Guineans there are also heavy rainstorms in their region, and with the Australian aborigines there are many obnoxious creatures abounding and they need all the protection they can get from the spitting snakes and the fiendish flies. (Plate IV, g.)

Finally the pattern of attrition with the Bronze Age people is the same as found with the Red Indians and there are the similar signs of the healed caries, and the covering of heavy attrition (Pedersen iii) with secondary dentine for the protection of the pulp cavities.

---

¹1941.

¹Circa 1600–1100 B.C.

²Chins.

³Weston Price, 1945.

Chapter 2

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIMITIVE AND MODERN DIETS

Publisher Summary

In the study presented in this chapter, it is of interest that the skulls of the Andamanese have a tendency towards caries rather than to periodontal disease, whereas the New Guineans have a low caries prevalence and more periodontal disease. Throughout the papers that deal with the people of the lower income levels in India, the data indicates that these poor people have a higher incidence of periodontal disease. In addition, they have food that is more abrasive to the gums and the teeth, for the food is often roughly harvested and will include small stones and grit. This may cause damage to the gingival tissues and may injure the papilla and the periodontal membrane by lodging between the teeth. The bad effects on the gingival and periodontal region caused by cleaning the teeth with a cleaning stick have been discussed as a possible cause of periodontal trouble in Asiatic Indians. The chapter also presents some recent studies that are on the diets of primitive people in Papua and the Philippines and in Nigeria. The studies were particularly concerned with the cultivation of the sweet potato in those countries and its influence on the general health, including dental health. It was found that there was less caries among these people in all age groups than among the other tribes that did not have the sweet potato as a staple form of diet.

FROM 1956 to 1962 I was stationed in Thailand, and I had plenty of opportunities to go on visits throughout the region and look at the numerous primitive tribes that were in the area. By far the most were found in the northern part of the country where Laos, Thailand, and Burma meet, actually it was the foothills of the Himalayas. The climate was comparatively mild and it was easy to travel about, there were no difficulties as there are now.

The worst conditions of dental health that I have seen anywhere I have travelled over the past twenty years was found there. Especially among the mountain people of Laos, with the Yak, Yang and Meo tribes. I stayed for several days in the village of one of the last named tribes. Women and children were lying about, in some cases they were very beautiful, but their teeth were in such bad condition, many of the teeth were dropping out from periodontal disease.

In this region the headman is very powerful and often very whimsical and makes extraordinary decrees generally based on religious grounds. The writer was very interested to know the reason for the bad state of the dental health, while the physique of the people seemed not bad at ...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• Chapter 1: THE FACIAL TRAITS OF PRIMITIVE AND CIVILIZED PEOPLES COMPARED: Including notes on facial links between ancient and modern primitive peoples
• Chapter 2: THE CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIMITIVE AND MODERN DIETS
• Chapter 3: THE INFLUENCES OF A MEAT AND VEGETABLE TYPE DIET COMPARED
• Chapter 4: FACIAL CHANGES THROUGH DIET CHANGES
• Chapter 5: TOOTH DISEASES IN PRIMITIVE TRIBES
• Chapter 6: RACIAL LINKS TRACED THROUGH THE STUDY OF TEETH
• Chapter 7: COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE TEETH OF THE TRIBES STUDIED
• Chapter 8: THE INFLUENCE OF THE SEA ON DENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH
• Chapter 9: SOME UNUSUAL CUSTOMS TO DO WITH THE TEETH
• Chapter 10: CONCLUSIONS
• Chapter 11: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
• Chapter 12: METHODS USED IN THE STUDY
• APPENDIX
• REFERENCES
• GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED IN THE TEXT
• INDEX