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citing causes of caries, because slight irritation will induce
inflammation, and this much more readily followed by morti-
cation. Under this class we may rank all cases of heredi-
tary carious affections of the teeth, that is as we often no-
tice, the parents may have bad teeth, and those of their chil-
dren will be notoriously so. It is well known to all physiolo-
gists and pathologists, that organic weakness may be trans-
mitted from parents to their offspring ; hence all the train of
hereditary diseases which generally baffle medical aid.
Thirdly, all those agents which vitiate the secretions, or in-
duce an irritable or inflammatory state of the system, will
either become powerfully exciting causes of caries, or render
the teeth greatly susceptible of deleterious impressions
from all the exciting causes of caries. In this third class
we find all gross and high livers, and especially the dispep-
tic, habitually affected by slow fever, which furs the tongue
and vitiates the secretions of the stomach and mouth. As
this state is almost peculiar to the refined and luxurious states
of society, it is here we find caries most prevalent. Seldom
is it noticed among the uncivilized societies of men, or those
who have little access to all those articles of diet which viti-
ate the secretions and induce an inflammatory state of the
system. It is but a few weeks since that I saw the family
of an Oneida Chief at Saratoga. Upon inquiring into the
state of their teeth I found that they were very much dis-
eased in several individuals, and the wife of the chief in-
formed me that diseased teeth were frequently met with
among their people, but observed that it was not so with
their ancestors ; that her mother died at 90 years of age,
and had never lost any of her second teeth. These facts
arc easily explained upon our foregoing principles. The an-
cient Indians of North America lived upon the most simrle
diet and used a great deal of exercise ; war and hunting