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and a most powerful incentive on the part of the patient, is
partially taken away ; to wit, the assurance that if his mouth
and teeth are kept perfectly clean, the latter will seldom be
• liable to decay.
I have paid the most anxious attention to this subject, and
have examined the teeth of many persons, and have noted
the effect of early and constant cleanliness upon them, and
my observations have led me always to observe, that those
persons who were constant in keeping their teeth clean, had
far, and beyond comparison, better teeth, than those who
were dirty and slovenly with them.
This remark we have seen verified in persons of the same
family ; for it is not to be denied, that some families, and indi-
viduals, and classes of men, have naturally better teeth than
others.
Another remark which we have been led to make, and
which is indirectly concurred in, by all writers upon the
subject, is, that caries, in almost every instance, makes
its
appearance where the enamel has been removed by art, or
accident, or where it is naturally thinnest. For instance, in
the small cavities upon the crowns of the teeth, about their
necks, just where the enamel becomes much attenuated, or
entirely disappears, and on those parts of the teeth which
come in partial contact with each other.
These remarks explain the reason why those persons whose
jaws are well developed, and possess a considerable rotundity,
instead of being pointed or narrow at the anterior part, and
thereby compressing the teeth, and those whose teeth are
not crowded together, which allows them to be well devel-
oped, and the enamel to be equally thick and strona over the
body of the tooth, have so much better teeth than persons
under contrary circumstances. This also explains to us a
reason, and one which I have been repeatedly asked, why