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PHYSIOGNOMY AND THE SAVING OF TEETH. 829

so perfect esthetically as it would have been had the case received proper
early treatment.
The important consideration from a surgical and artistic standpoint
in nearly all cases of abnormal upper protrusion is : Has not Nature
been forced to produce these conditions, wholly or in part, to accommo-
date teeth that were too large for the natural or inherent frame and
overlying features ? And could we have helped Nature in the early
years of development, by making it unnecessary for her to produce this
excessive growth of bone for the development and sustenance of all
these large teeth?
The same is true where the protrusion seems to have been caused
by the inheritance of an inharmoniously large jaw crowded full of
teeth.
We certainly cannot reduce the size of the teeth, but we can reduce
their number, and in so doing reduce the size of the destined maxillary
Fig. 8S4. Fig. 885.

and dental arch. But we must make no mistake. The danger of ad-
vocating such a principle to those who have given this branch of den-
tistry little thought is that teeth will be extracted to accommodate an
overcrowded condition in the arch, with little or no thought of the
physiognomy, when a careful and properly pursued stiidy of the features
and their comparison with the parental types will show that in reality
the dental and maxillary arch should be enlarged, and every tooth re-
main to induce its natural growth and development. If this has not
been attained by natural processes, every tooth should certainly remain
to hold the artificially developed arch in place.
How are we to study the undeveloped face of a child, every linea-
ment of which is passing through rapid changes of growth, with a view
of determining whether or not the dental arch and jaws will be too
prominent, or that other features will not enlarge to a harmonizing
proportion ?