see it clearly

Mouth and Teeth

A PERFECT mouth is, according to sculptors and painters, of medium size, the upper lip bowshaped, the under nearly straight. The lips themselves, in nature of a bright crimson, should be neither too thick, which gives them a sensual expression, nor too thin, as in the latter case the whole countenance assumes an appearance of hardness and penuriousness.

The influence of the mouth and teeth on the personal beauty of a woman is known and freely admitted by all, and if a girl have a beautiful set of even, white, compact teeth, she has the foundation of enough beauty for the average woman. With the most irregular features, I have seen women who were irresistible because they were possessed of an utterly enchanting mouth and teeth. Indeed, were I to choose any one feature of the face as the keystone for beauty building, I should say unhesitatingly, give me a beautiful mouth and perfect teeth, and I will do the rest. I can transform ugly skins into lilies and roses, make coarse hair glossy and luxuriant, give the eyes a gentle and womanly expression so that they will be sweetly attractive even though per se they are not beautiful, but I am always rather discouraged by a noticeably malformed mouth, and distinctly so when the lips of a woman part to reveal decayed, misshapen teeth, pale, unwholesome gums, and a diseased and fetid breath. However we live fortunately in the age of wonderful dentistry, and even the unfortunate woman with crooked, misshapen teeth need not despair. Crooked teeth may be straightened, decayed teeth cleaned and filled, discolored ones bleached, and even hopelessly diseased ones may be treated and the disorder arrested, and there are artificial teeth made to-day which really do defy detection. It is positively essential to every woman's beauty to keep her mouth healthy or her breath will be offensive.

"Disease and health for a warm pair of lips
Like York and Lancaster, wage active strife.
One on his banner front the white rose keeps
And one the red; and thus with woman's life,
Her lips are made a battlefield for those
Who struggle for the color of a rose."

Nothing so soon is fatal to the beauty of the mouth as disease in any form. The fever which gives the eye its unnatural and often fascinating brilliancy will also paint the cheeks with a flush of exquisite rose,--its effect on the lips is to dry them and make them parched and brown and blistered looking, and the breath is tainted instantly by disease. You will hear a physician or a nurse exclaim: "She had a sore throat. I knew at once by her breath it was diphtheritic"--or--" He had a typhoid breath" --or--" She certainly had consumption. I recognized the phthisis breath." Whenever the breath is contaminated, you should look at once for the cause. In children frequently it is due to some slight derangement of the stomach, or it may be and usually is, the fore-runner of a childish malady. But where it is chronic in young or old, there is need of a skillful doctor at once. The catarrhal breath is peculiarly offensive, yet I think it can be almost always greatly palliated if not entirely disinfected. For immediate use the following is an antiseptic wash, and will for a certain time correct an offensive breath.

ANTISEPTIC TOOTH WASH FOR OFFENSIVE BREATH (Beaumez)

• Phenic acid 1 gramme.
• Boric acid 25 grammes.
• Thymol (in crystals) 0 grammes 50
• Essence of mentha 30 drops.
• Tincture of anise 10 grammes.
• Distilled water 3 pints.

Rinse the mouth with the above, which should be diluted for use in the proportion of one-half tooth wash to same quantity of clear water. Use after each meal and at any time required.

For a positive cure of catarrhal breath I know of nothing so efficacious as Marchand's hydrozone and glycozone treatment.

When the breath is continuously offensive, the following pastilles are recommended, as they may be carried in the pocket and are very efficacious:-

• Pulverized coffee 45 grammes.
• Wood charcoal 16 grammes.
• Pulverized sugar 15 grammes.
• Vanilla extract 15 grammes.

Mucilage made from Senegal gum--enough to form paste of proper consistency.

Mix the coffee, charcoal, and sugar thoroughly with mortar and pestle, add the vanilla, then the mucilage, which is made by dissolving the gum in water. Roll the paste out thin and cut in little squares. Keep in tin or pasteboard boxes.

All children of our day have a right, which advanced dentistry in various branches gives them, to a set of regular, sound, white teeth. I will qualify this somewhat by excepting the little unfortunates who come into this world with the taint of scrofula (or consumption, which is also scrofulous), in their veins. Even with these terrible legacies much may be done to strengthen and assist the bone in the formation of the teeth and the straightening of crooked, overlapped ones. Many a girl has had all her chances of ever becoming a pretty woman quite ruined by a mouthful of crooked, overlapping uneven teeth.

Frequently a girl's looks are destroyed by a narrow and protruding upper jaw which a little care will transform into a symmetrical feature. In these cases, it is well always to consult a good scientific surgeon dentist. Do not, however, permit a sound tooth, no matter how it overlaps, to be extracted on the advice of any one dentist; teeth are far too precious to run any risks about. In every case, the teeth should be straightened as they come in, for while they are coming in the jaw will yield and make place for them. After they are firmly set, even though one resorts to extracting one or two where they are crowded, to make room for the others, the result is a space and the remaining teeth will only stay straight while the torturing plate has them in a vice. I have seen children suffer such agonies from those cruel plates that I would never consent to the use of one again. I remember too vividly, one dear child's torture and my own horror, when, upon examining the plate which was to straighten her teeth, and had been by the dentist firmly attached by all sorts of brutal contrivances so she could not herself take it out, I found the proud flesh protruding from it in bits, some of them half an inch in length, all around between the plate and her teeth. This child suffered martyrdom through the brutality of a dentist, and after all, the operation was a failure, resulting in nervous prostration of the victim, the loss of two beautiful sound teeth, and no result in straightening those which were to be connected by the vacancies made in extracting. The bill for this service was five hundred and twenty-five dollars. Let one such experience be a lesson to those who read of it.

It is now conceded that a great deal depends on the care of the baby teeth. The period of dentition is of course a very trying one, but it can be greatly ameliorated by care and the greatest possible cleanliness. A teething baby should have at least two full warm water baths each day and the little mouth and gums should be washed frequently with a weak solution of borax and cooling water. The very moment the first little tooth appears, you should buy the baby a tiny soft camel's-hair toothbrush, and morning and night each little tooth should be cleansed. Use the borax solution for this, and if agreeable to the baby, add just a drop of essence of peppermint. Never extract the first teeth to make way for the second Let them drop out as they will, or at the most assist them only to make their exist when they are hanging by a mere thread. Children and in fact grown people, rarely brush their teeth properly. Teach the little people to brush up and down, never across the tooth--in the latter the enamel is rubbed across the grain and frequently is worn off by too much brushing the wrong way. The best dentifrice for children is camphorated chalk, which is readily made at home. It is cleansing, antiseptic, and wholesome. The following is an excellent formula for it:--

TOOTH POWDER NO. 1

• Precipitated chalk 4 ounces.
• Powdered orris root 8 ounces.
• Powdered camphor 1 ounce.

Reduce the camphor to a fine powder in a mortar, moistening it with a very little alcohol. Add other ingredients. Mix thoroughly, and sift through a fine bolting cloth.

TOOTH POWDER NO. 2

A good tooth powder may be prepared at a small cost as follows:--

Take two ounces of prepared chalk, add to it one-half an ounce of powdered orris root and a quarter of an ounce of carbonate of soda. Mix and pass twice through a wire sieve and it is ready for use.

One of the most offensively painful afflictions of the mouth is too abundant salivation, which is frequently accompanied by a relaxed condition of the lips and a lack of control of the muscles. There is nothing more disgusting than the accumulation of saliva in the corners of the mouth. The following is the famous "Zeissl" formula for the cure of what is called in English text-books, "a slobbering mouth."

FORMULA FOR TOO ABUNDANT SALIVATION--(Zeissl)

• Distilled water 250 grammes.
• Cinnamon water 50 grammes.
• Syrup of cinnamon 20 grammes.
• Tincture of iodine 4 grammes.

Dilute with water. Rinse the mouth well two or three times daily.

Children often acquire bad habits of making mouths-- of grimacing -- and sometimes suck or bite the lips until they so distort them as to produce a permanent deformity and ruin the expression of the face. They should be deterred from habits which are fatal to good looks. Mouthy children are unpleasant, but they are curable. (See also Chapter XLII.) It is astonishing, however, to note certain persons, not children by any means, who appear to be utterly unconscious of the appearance of their countenances when they are chatting or laughing. They engage in the most extraordinary muscular contortions and distortions sometimes revealing whole sets of not too attractive teeth and even half an inch of gum above them and presenting an almost savage appearance. I think it would be wise to insist where a young girl is getting into such a way, that she should be made to watch her uncanny appearance by conversing before a mirror. The vanity happily inherent in our sex and without which we should, in my opinion, be but a sad lot of "females" as Mr. Pickwick would say, may be depended upon to effect a cure.

Massage is the only treatment for the drooping corners of the mouth. Make the movement upward and outward; downward facial movements work ruin.

It is something to live in the day of crown fillings. Think of it, those who have gone through the martyrdom of tooth extracting and the miseries of the old-fashioned artificials. Yet, it is not so very long ago since teeth were filled or stopped in good old London with "wooden plugs." Think of the agony of that operation. I saw a woman the other day who is conservative to the last degree. She is rejoicing in most beautifully scientific dentistry including bridge-work, crowns, and all the latest novelties and luxuries of the dental world. I could scarcely believe my eyes. She looked as though she had found the fountain of youth and taken a plunge in its restoring waters. It is not astonishing that in old times the removal of a front tooth was the punishment for many crimes. To be minus a front tooth was a lasting brand of degradation and convicted prisoners would beg for the lash or for any other form of punishment.

Sometimes it happens that despite the greatest care the gums soften and recede; there is usually an inherited cause. Taken in time the following wash is very efficacious in hardening the gums:--

WASH FOR RECEDING GUMS--(Delestre)

• Catechu aa 32 grammes.
• Myrrh 32 grammes.
• Balm of Peru 4 grammes.
• Extract of cochlearia 155 grammes.

Macerate for eight days; filter; use diluted with water to rinse the mouth and gums as often as required.

The famous Eau Botot, a dentifrice of great renown, is made as follows:--

EAU BOTOT

• Green anise 64 grammes.
• Cinnamon 16 grammes.
• Cloves 1 gramme.
• Pellitory 4 grammes.
• Cochineal 5 grammes.
• Cream of tarter 5 grammes.
• Benzoin (tincture) 2 grammes.
• Essence of peppermint 4 grammes.
• Alcohol a 80 2000 grammes.

Mix the cream of tartar, benzoin, and cochineal together, then add the other ingredients. Macerate for eight days. Filter and bottle for use.

For chapped lips the following is a good ointment:--

LIP SALVE

• Spermaceti 1 1/4 ounces.
• White wax 1 ounce.
• Almond oil 4 ounces.
• Alkanet root 3 drachms.

Melt all in a water bath. Let it nearly cool and add:--

• Balsam of Peru 4 drachms.
• Oil of cloves 20 drops.
• Essence of ambergris 3 drops.

A CURE FOR TOOTHACHE

• Acetate of morphine 0 grammes 05.
• Essence of menthol 4 drops.
• Phenic acid (pure) 20 drops.
• Collodion Q. S. to make 4 grammes of the mixture.

Moisten a bit of cotton and apply to the cavity.

OINTMENT FOR COLD SORES AND FEVER BLISTERS

• Camphor 5 grains.
• Powdered arrowroot 1/2 drachm.
• Subnitrate of bismuth 1/2 drachm.
• Ointment of rose water 1/2 ounce.

Apply whenever necessary to the lips.

How to Read Character From Features: A woman with fairly harmonious features and a double set of perfect, regular and pearl-white teeth freely and frankly displayed in laughing, is fairly certain to be a creature of remarkable mental balance.

Such teeth accompany unusual endowments, the chief drawback in the make-up of the subject, particularly if she have the smiling habit, being a lack of firmness.

Women of tremendous resolution, concentration and fixity of purpose have a habit of closing the lips and showing very little of the teeth, even when they smile.

When you see a pretty girl with rather short, square teeth which have wide spaces between them, set her down as fickle, for these are the teeth of constitutional inconstancy.

Girls with long, narrow teeth are rarely strong physically. Consumptives who have inherited pulmonary troubles almost always have these long, narrow, frail teeth. When the upper teeth and jaw noticeably project over the lower the indications are for a rather elementary mind and an uncertain temper.

Women with these teeth are not, properly speaking, ill-tempered. They are generous and often fundamentally good-natured, but once they are roused -- well, it is wise to give them the floor and to maintain a discreet silence.

Irregular teeth that look like tangled kernels of an ear of corn are the index of a badly balanced nature.

When you see a girl whose teeth naturally curve from the gum margin in toward the mouth you can wager anything you like she is prudent about money matters.

Women with uneven teeth, those which project or recede noticeably, are uneven in disposition also, and more developed in the passions than intellectually. Of course the form of the circle of the teeth must naturally repeat the form of the jawbone, and the girl with a generous mouth, which her family calls big, may console herself by the knowledge that, according to face readers, a broad mouth, full of white, even, normal-sized teeth, with jaws that meet exactly or nearly so, surely betokens a mind with a broad grasp and a generous, even temper, but rather careless nature.

The girl with the happy-go-lucky teeth exemplifies this type. She is the girl who gets taken in and imposed upon right and left, but she smiles and forgives and never learns that the world is hard and selfish, no matter how long she lives.