The Savannah morning news., 1901-12-27
TEETH IN WARFARE.
EngIand's Experience in Africa EN-
phasizes the Importance of Mill
1arN DenfiafrH

tInSIHnO's experience IN Africa EN-
phasizes the Importance of Mill
tary Dentistry.
From the London Pail Mall Gazette.
After twenty-one months fighting
four dental surgeons have been sent
to South Africa to attend to the teeth
of the army. Thus does the War Of
flee put forth stupendous efforts to
I atone for past inaptitude.
In an army of a quarter of a mill
lion men these four surgeons should
| be kept tolerably busy. No soldier
J who has campaigned six months in
Africa will, if he be wise, neglect
chance of having his teeth examined.
Each surgeon, therefore, will have
clientele of $500 officers and men. AS
Stunning that on every day of the week
Gncluding Sundays) 80 men are treat
ed by eacil dentist, lhe teeth of the
| army will have been oVerhauled and
the work of filing, excaVating, and NIL
ing completed in something over SO
months. 1t should console man on
active service suffering to-day from
toothache in a precious molar, which
he can i'll afford to lose, to know that
he will not be troubled with the ag-
onizing pain later than April 1907.
In the unequal struggle between trek
OK and biscuit on the one hand and
mere human teeth on the other, not 5
per cent. of the men of my company
came through scratches. In many
cases the damage was slight; in others,
where the teeth were naturally weak
and brittle, the mischief done was ir-
reparable. Even with an average set,
! Straining on an average biscuit, you
! never felt quite certain which would
! be the first to go-your teeth or your
biscuit.
| One trooper in my section lost four
/ of his most useful grinders in single
weeks march from Abraham's Kraal
to Vet River. He would point to a
row of broken stumps standing as
monuments to the invulnerability of
| the all-conquering biscuit. To one of
these Inflated grinders the plate which
carried his artificial teeth was fixed,
! so that, for all purposes of chewing
! his entire mouth was put out of ac>
! ton. By soaking biscuits in water
| and drinking the thin soup made by
boiling trek OK, he lasted till we made
| Winburg. There he speedily went
| down to enteric.
The doctor attached to our battalion,
! a man of splendid valor, would ex-
| tract teeth. There his dental duties
ended. He did no filing, no filling. In
( the general hospitals and in the Yeo~
| many Hospital at Pretoria extraction
was the only course open to those who
| suffered. On the march, every man
was his own dentist. Exercising that
resourcefulness which necessity breeds,
soldiers would plug cavities in aching
/ teeth with tobacco, cayenne pepper,
rubber, (scraped from waterproof
/ sheets,) anything calculated to cover
| or kill an exposed, throbbing nerve.
| Such treatment rarely proved effective.
| After tossing through one, or perhaps
/ two, sleepless nights, the swollen
faced victim would parade with the
! sick, take the operating chair, ian
! empty biscuit box,) and submit to the
doctors hug.
While my company was camped at a
certain town in the Orange River col
ony, an American dentist had more
work than he could cope with. He
was, unfortunately, a drunkard and
| the envy of the severely sober Tommies
/ who could only wish they lad art his
! complaint" He was without gas and
gold filling, yet he would not touch a
| tooth under a guinea. His practice
might have proved less lucrative had
his first client not protested so strongly
| against being operated upon without
| gas that the dentist gave him a glass
| of brandy to produce Dutch courage.
In a town where intoxica ting drinks
! could not be bought for uni old gold, the
| American was most useful man to
| know. full corporal who tainted jul
! diciously three times while having
back tooth bored and filled, was
! brought round with three tots" of
brandy. But he killed the goose. Next
! day, the waiting room beiEg crowded
with troopers prepared to faint at a
moments notice, disappointed soldier
from the operating room announced
that the dentist though so drunk that
he had in error attempted to eXcavate
the cusp of a sound tooth, had no more
brandy in the house
At the time the original yoemanry
were enrolled candidates teeth were
not closely examined. Consequently
there We're in my company men with
artificial teeth and men with so few
sound teeth that in peace times they
| would have been at once rejected,
whatever their other fighting qualifica-
lions. Artificial teeth held their own
| with biscuit for some time, and then
succumbed But in another respect
they came as a boon and a blessing to
certain of their INSCRIPTIONS owners.
AS the dreary months of trekking
dragged on, men. their energies jaded,
| their constitutions run down, their
limbs splashed with veldt sores, looked
for any loophole of escape from the
martial yoke. Two troopers, to my
knowledge, found the loophole by hid
! ing their false teeth and explaining
/
unable to eat their food. There was
nothing for ii but to pack the malinger-
ers into hospital at Pretoria, and send
/ them thence down country to base,
thence to England.
The colonel of a nameless battalion,
moved to pity by the sight Of
/ sergeant's toothless jaws, sent him to
the only competent dentist in Pretoria
to have az artificial set fitted. Before
the work was finished the dentist--a
! German--contracted entric and died.
! The sergeant was drafted to Cape Town
thence home; and on the voyage he
never missed a solid meal. Three times
a day he struggled his old set of false
teeth from his pocket inc his mouth,
and as each meal ended he deftly trans
| formed himself into a gummy object
Of commiseration.
The latest herculean effort of the
War Office TO meet the necessities of
! the army will have some effect-the
! same effect which an Infatuated farmer
would produce by firing a rife into a
swarm of locusts to protect his crops
| from their depradations. The hordes
/ Of dentists attracted from America,
Europe and Australia 10 the coast
/ towns OF South Africa will continue
q -