The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1883-12-20
GraYe.Yards as Gold Mines.

"There are about 1900 dentists in
the United States and they pack into
the teeth of the American people a ton OF
pure gold.egery year. guess about five
times that weight of less precious met
al, such as tin, silver and platinum, go
the same way Now, these metals are
worth 81, 100000 and in the twenty
first century all the coin in the United
States will be buried in the grave
yards" The dentist looked distressed
at the result of his calculations, and the
reporter, to revive him, suggested that
the figures were an argument in favor
of cremation. The dentist shrugged
his shoulders. "Yes," said he, Shut
you've no idea how the gold is thus be-
coming used up. People used to be
content with filling the dark caverns
of their molars with any kind of metal,
now it must be gold. There is also a
growing industry in filling artificial
teeth. -
How can they want filling ?'' asked
the surprised reporter.
''Why, my dear sir, they are made
SO. You know how carpenters will
pick the fairest, smCothest board for
have a painter to daub it all over with
knots, grains and splits? So the
modern patron of artificial teeth takes
his elegant newSet to the dentist and
has him drill out vacancies to fill.
Looks natural, don't you, see? Hun
dreds of pounds of gold are disposed
| ofin this way every year. 1t ism so par
tieularly the gold that the wearer of
these artificial teeth wants to display as
it is to have the average citizen look
upon them as his natural grinders.
You see, don't you?' and the dentist
tapped his own false teeth with little
| probe that he held in his hand.
lis the artificial-teeth industry a
growing one?' inquired the reporter.
80, yes; although statistics show
that only one-third of the people of the
United States who really need artificial
teeth. avail themselves of them
Strange, isn't it? Yet there are about
1000, 900 of them made in this country
a year, as it is. Prices have come down
terribly, though, and where dentists
used to retire after eight or nine years
of practice and live in luxury the rest
of their lives, they now have to struggle
on the best of their lives and then die
poor. We formerly had from $40 to
800 for double set of teeth. Now
500 is good price, and good ones that
will last five or six years can be bought
for from IS to S16."
is the decay of teeth increasing or
diminishing among the people of this
country?n .F}7
80, increasing. Two hundred years
ago one person in five had sound,teeth.
| A hundred years ago but one person in
twenty-five had perfect teeth, and in
this nineteenth century age of reform
our very latest statistics show that but
one person in eighty had perfectly sound
teeth. It's an alarming condition of
things, and by the same ratio it doesn't
take very deep mathematician to see
that the time is near at hand when un-
sound teeth will be universal. Their
decay is largely augmented by the use
of cheap dentifrices and powders which
are advertised to give them pearly
look. 1t does just the reverse. 1t re-
moves the sparkling enamel and puts
in its place CHASTITY plaster-of-paris
color that is positively repulsive. -
/ Cgetela'ad Herald. EE