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to see whether or not there was an occlusion, and there
was not. The point is just this. He had been in the habit
of studying these things and he knew at once that there

was no occlusion, for the reason that the patient flinched
from the mallet ; that tooth had not had proper usage and
its peridental membrane would not bear strokes of the mallet
as it would bear them if it had had proper exercise. In
any case where a patient habitually avoids the use of the
teeth in chewing, where they simply pat the food into a
bolus with the molar teeth and swallow it, the peridental
membranes become tender and sensitive, they become thick-
ened, and in a short time the patient will find it painful to
use the teeth vigorously, and when they come to us for
operations they do not bear the mallet well ; the blows of
the mallet cause pain ; not imaginary pain ; it is actually pain-
ful and they flinch. Now, I have been in the habit of mak-
ing temporary fillings for these people, making what test
I could with the dynamometer. Sometimes I will find them
biting forty or fifty pounds, or sixty pounds as the utmost
that they can do without severe pain. I tell them, ''Here,
this won't do; you are. not doing your teeth justice; you
are not doing your physical organism justice; you are
not doing your stomach justice; you are not chew-
ing your food you are simply taking your food into
;
your mouth, patting it into a bolus with your molar teeth
and swallowing it ; it is not broken up ; it is not properly
insalivated and it is not in any condition for digestion. You
not only injure your teeth and lay yourself liable to dis-
eases of the gums and to caries of the teeth, but you lay
yourself liable to all the other train of diseases that are
liable to come from improper mastication and faulty diges-
tion. Now, it is necessary for you to go to work with
your teeth and chew your food ; select foods that are fairly
difficult at first ; then select foods that are more difificult
later and use your teeth upon them, and then select those
that are still more difficult, and keep on in this way until
you can chew the most diflicult ol foods.'' I have had pa-
tients run up their power of biting upon this instrument
from 50 to 100 pounds within one month, and within a
year to run it up from 50 to 200 pounds, and those per-
sons came to enjoy chewing food ; it became a pleasure to

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