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SYSTEMIC CONDITIONS. 117 ;

senting us with children who are very susceptible to caries.
There seems to have been some change brought about in the
change of climate or conditions under which they live. The
reverse of this has been noted in a few instances. Also, it has
been noted that parents who have come to the city from the
country and who did not suffer much from caries, present us
children reared in the city who suffer greatly from caries. Here
again a change in the mode of living seems to have influenced
the hereditary factor. These changes are quite frequent.
The predisposition to caries is much stronger in youth and
tends to disappear as persons arrive at mature age. Indeed,
caries of the teeth is a disease of youth rather than of adult
age, for it is now found, after much careful observation on this
point, that if caries of the teeth occurring in youth is well and
successfully managed, very little caries will occur in after life
in the majority of persons. Cases of persistence, however, of
the beginnings of caries at new points are sufficiently plentiful
and, also, cases are frequently occurring where persons have
been immune from caries for many years, and suddenly we find
their teeth decaying very badly, showing that there has been
a marked change in the predisposition to this disease.
Again in pregnant women there is often a renewal of the
conditions giving rise to caries of the teeth that are apt to con-
tinue also during the period of lactation. It has happened that
girls who have grown up under the best of care and arrived at
adult age with many fillings, perhaps, but with teeth in good
condition and showing unmistakable signs of immunity to decay,
have married, and, during their first pregnancy, developed a
considerable number of new cavities in which decay progressed
rapidly. This recurrence of susceptibility is not at all uncom-
mon, and marks a change in bodily conditions with consequent
changes in the oral secretions, favoring the development of
caries of the teeth.
The fact that caries of the teeth is more prevalent in chil-
dren than in adults, conforms with what is known of many other
diseases. We have a whole list of diseases that are peculiar to
children, as measles, chicken-pox, diphtheria, whooping-cough,
scarlet fever, etc. As persons arrive at adult age, the predispo-
sition to these diseases passes away, or immunity comes; and
this is so complete that it is rare to find an adult person suffering
from this class of diseases. They are practically confined to
children.
Generally also they are self-limiting diseases. This term