Heredity versus practice / by Lilian Lindsay.

  • Lindsay, Lilian.
Date:
[1949?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Heredity versus practice / by Lilian Lindsay. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In this study of the intermaxillary- maxillary suture Sir Frank Colyer will be remembered by the paper he gave to the E.O.S. in 1936 on “ The Pathology of the Crowded Mouth,” in which he showed as the result of study of the skulls in the R.C.S. museum that when the suture is closed at the age of 4 years there is crowd¬ ing of the teeth, but that when it is open there is that much desired spacing of the milk teeth and the hope of regular teeth in the successors. On this subject Professor Brash remarks “ the true explanation of that relationship will, I believe, be found in general con¬ siderations of the relation of sutures to growth and particularly in the evidence that sutures tend always to close but are always in a constant state of reformation as surface growth takes place, evidence which points to the conclusion that the closure of a suture is not the cause but the result of a cessation of growth.” This is the case for the preacher. What have the followers of the prophet to say ? It is to that restlessness, which has marked him out from the beginning that man owes any progress he has made. His dis-satisfaction with deviations from the straight and his desire to rectify them, is shown in stories of the loss of paradise. The flood story, that first experiment in eugenics was a determination to extermin¬ ate the unfit and to begin afresh by breed¬ ing only from the perfect in mind, body and estate. The years flowed on into the centuries and deviations from the perfect appeared once more stimulating man’s ingenuity to devise means for their rectification. Sopho¬ cles observed this when he wrote :— All fertile in resource, resourceless never Greets he the morrow ; only death he wants the skill to shun But many a fell disease the healer s art hath foiled So soaring far past hope the wise inventiveness of man Finds diverse issues ; good or ill. Towards the end of the 17th century a stalwart supporter of the prophet appeared in the person of the great Pierre Fauchard who announced that “ the crooked shall be made straight.” and proceeded to show his faith by his works. He met with the same excuses against repeated visits to the orthodontist as are offered today, that is, lessons and masters. These excuses did not deter Fauchard, he collected a few spectators and armed with his pelican he dragged the errant tooth into position to the amazement of all who beheld it. The other method was to tie the tooth or teeth to a strip of metal, gold or silver, and to renew the ties, tightening them every day. It is an error to call that piece of metal an expansion arch, for expansion never enter¬ ed Fauchard’s head. When the space was not large enough for the irregular tooth he made it large enough by filing the adjacent teeth. I here was a prevailing opinion that filed teeth did not decay and lasted longer than those which are not so treated. That habits and posture are responsible for irregulatriies is no new idea, for Camper relates that it was held that Dutchmen had long heads “ because they lie upon their temples or their sides, and that Germans have round heads flat at the back because they lie upon their backs.” “ A particular manner of sitting or lying, of standing or walking, various corporeal defects and other circumstances of the like nature give a particular cast to the whole body. This is so obviously the case that the countenance of a deformed person will become deformed, that is it sinks gradually by the pressure of the brain which has now lost its equipoise. Thus the socket of one eye sinks lower than the other.” These defects were treated then as now by physical exercises in academies and colleges equipped with suitable appliances. It was natural that irregularities of the teeth should attract the attention of John Hunter who was the first anatomist to devote an entire treatise to the natural history and diseases of the teeth. His ex¬ periments on the growth of bone led him to state that after the eruption of the full temporary dentition growth ceased in that part of the jaws and that if it had not been sufficient to accommodate the permanent successors there would be irregularity in that part especially the upper. To counter¬ act this lack of room he suggested the extraction sometimes of the bicuspids sometimes of the first permanent molars “ before the temporary grinders are shed.”
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