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Show Degeneration of tho Human Teeth. The law of retardation exhibits itself in tho teeth of tho higher racesof mankind in a highly inconvenient manner. The greatly developed brain requires all the available room in tho skull; there is no space left for the attachment of muscles for a powerful jaw. Cooked food also causes a degeneracy In the development of the jaw. Thero Is constantly no room left for either tho wisdom teeth or the second upper incisors; tho wisdom teeth are retarded, often cause great pain, and decay early. The second incisors appear In startling and unexpected places, and 1 often (iu America especially) do not cut the gum at all. Professor Copo says that "American dentists have observed that tho third molar teeth (wisdom teeth) aro hi natives of the United States very liable to imperfect growth or suppression, and to a degree entirely unknown among savage sav-age or even many civilized races." Tho same suppression has been observed In the outer pair of superior incisore. This is owing not only to a reduction la the size of tho arches of tho jaws, but to successively prolonged delay in the appearance ap-pearance of tho teeth. In tho same way men, and tho man like apes, have fewer teeth than the lower monkeys, and these again fewer than the Insectivorous mammals mam-mals to which they are most nearly allied. When this difference in dentition has been established, civilized man may claim to place himself hi a new species, apart from low savages as well as from high apes. Mrs. Alice Bodington in Popular Science Monthly. |