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Show Dr. Brady Says: Fluorine Content of Water Is Solution to Good Teeth I made no allusion to the teachings In this column, but the mere fact i that he troubled to write me at all restores me to fine fettle to i carry on my bitter fight with the dentists at large. What we are fighting about I'm not qulte.sure, but I have thick stacks of letters i and clippings that show how bitter bit-ter the .fight is. I serve notice now that what I learned on Tristan Tris-tan da Cunha is not going to sweeten the fight much, so far aa 1 am concerned. i QUESTION AXI) ANSWERS 1 Petit Mai i Should I marry a young man who was turned down by the army during World War II because of a "common" disease which makes him drop off to sleep almost any time unless he keeps active. He says It is nothing serious and it can be cured easily with "shots." (Miss U A.) Answer Why not wait till the young man takes the "shots" and gets cured? Wise course is for vuu both to visit. a physician and ' abide by the physician's Judgment Whew! Your advice to be wary of sleeping sleep-ing pills is fine, but it is too bsd you are not at liberty to tell your legion of readers that four pieces of garlic simmered five minutes in milk and taken hot just before retiring will put one to sleep as quickly as a barbiturate. (W. F. P.) Answer Y a h b u t when the neighbors get wind of it, where would 1 be ? Copyright, 1950, John F. Dille Co. By William Brady, M.D. Tristan water is not a brand of spring water, mineral water or bottled water. Tristsn da- Cunha, is one of three SMasjasasaseaaM wee little 11 1 I lands the W I "lonely i s I e s" f I fsr in the south rv tstt "' I Atlsntio midway 1 1 I between Monte- I tV V I video, Urugusy. j and Capetown. ' C. jk I South Africa f I Nearest Inhsb- f I ited place is St I i I Helena. 1.12U J miles to the Dr. Brady north. The people (white, of European origin) of Tristan are famous for their good teeth. Having visited the place and seen for myself the conditions. I reel safe in saying that, although they do not brush their teeth at all, they have the finest teeth in the civilized world. That is, their teeth are far better preserved then the teeth of even - the asset meticulous tunttt-bmsh-" ers. namely, you gullible Yankee Wiseacrea who fail for the slogan "a clean tooth never decays." Tristan da Cunha is a volcanic Island only 20 milea or so in circumference. cir-cumference. The drinking wster comes from numerous brooks flowing down to the sea from a mall crater lake. ' Contains Fluorine Only after our ship hsd sailed from Tristan did It occur to me that I ahould have brought home ; samples of the drinking wster to determine the fluorine content. It 1 has been established in . recent years that the Intake of aVninute quantity of fluorine or fluoride, in ! water, food or medicine, has con-i con-i s'dcrable caries-inhibiting value, j that Is. it tends to prevent tooth decay. Authorities who have given the matter a good deal of study ' now agree that the desirable fluorine fluo-rine content of drinking water for this purpose is approximately one part per million. j In certain regions where the drinking water contains much ' more thsn that, it has csused mottled mot-tled enamel. This occurs only where the wster contains more than two parta per million. Commenting on the conditions I saw In Tristan- I said I hoped any one of a scientific turn of ( mind who msy. hsve the opportunity oppor-tunity to visit Tristan da Cunha I In the near future will at least bring bark s flask of the drink- I lng water for a fluoride test. Far-Renching Column You hsve no Idea how far-reach- lng this column Is. A few dsys j after the srticle sppeared in print I received a personal communica- i turn from a professor in one of Ihe top notch dental schools. He , told me that he has two flasks of ; Tristsn drinking water, one col- ! lected by himself when he spent j four months there with a Nor- j wegisn scientific expedition why, i oh. why don t people tell me these I things? snd the other shipped : to him ten years later. The fluo- i rine content rsnges between 0.20 snd 0.33 psrts per million in dif- 1 ferent brooks of the settlement, i That would be about one part to five million and one part to three million, less than the one part per million which authorities scree tenda to prevent tooth decay. de-cay. The dental achool professor ! |