Mottled Teeth

Twenty years ago, parents in the little town of Oakley, Idaho began to complain that their children were growing up with dark brown, pitted teeth. After long investigation, curious dentists found that the mottling was caused by fluorine (a relative of iodine, chlorine, bromine) in the town's new water supply. At considerable expense, Oakley parents dug another set of wells. Ten years later they proudly reported that children drinking "pure" water from the new wells had teeth white and glistening.

Taking a lesson from Oakley, the U. S. Public Health Service for years sent warnings to 300 other "mottled enamel areas" from South Carolina to Oregon. Even one-millionth part of fluorine in four daily glasses of water over a period of a year, said dentists, was enough to pit a growing child's teeth for life. And fluorine-pitted teeth, all dentists believed, quickly decayed and fell out.

Dentist Henry Trendley Dean of the Public Health Service set to work examining the teeth of 15,000 children in the Middle West. Last year he issued a report of his findings that shocked every dentist in the U. S. left Oakley parents down in the mouth. Said he: "The amount of caries [decay] is less in mottled enamel areas than in normal areas. ..." Although fluorine makes ugly smiles, it preserves teeth "independently of mottled enamel." To the known factors causing tooth decay (too many starches and sweets, not enough vitamins, an abundance of mouth bacteria) he suggested that his colleagues add lack of fluorine. There is a possibility, he said, "of partially controlling caries through the communal water-supply."

Last week, at the Columbus, Ohio meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a group of enthusiastic dentists and physicians told how they had continued Dr. Dean's work, discussed the possibilities of using fluorine as a decay preventive. Significant reports:

> Dentist Sidney Bernard Finn of the University of Rochester fed a group of 90 rats a "caries-producing diet" of coarsely-ground corn. A second group of 45 rats, living on the same diet, had their teeth bathed in a weak mixture of potassium fluoride in water once a day. Results: 1) all the rats in Group I had large cavities; 2) the rats in Group II "showed a 70% reduction in dental decay"; 3) 13 of the rats in Group II had no cavities. The reduction was "not mainly in the size of the cavities, but in the number of lesions." Dr. Finn will soon use his fluoride solution to bathe the teeth of children in a Rochester orphan asylum.

> Dr. Benjamin Frank Miller of Chicago's Zoller Memorial Dental Clinic reported that fluorine killed the bacteria which breed in mouth acids (lactobacilli), cause tooth decay. In addition, said Dr. Joseph F. Volker of the University of Rochester, fluorine enters into direct chemical combination with the teeth, strengthens them against decay.

> Although the dentists at the meeting agreed that the time was near when they would use "controlled local application of fluorine to prevent dental caries," Dr. Basil Glover Bibby of the University of Rochester sounded a warning. Said he: "The use of fluorine in tooth powder or paste should not be considered, because it is unsafe. Fluorine is poisonous and dangerous if administered by untrained persons." He assured his colleagues that they need not sacrifice beauty for utility. Fluorine, he said, mottles only newly erupted second teeth. In proper doses, it will not pit permanent teeth if given after the age of ten.

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