Abstract
HAWAIIAN JAWS AND TEETH.—Mr. H. G. Chappel has examined the collection of Hawaiian mandibles, both those attached to crania and those without crania, and mostly dating from before the coming of the white man, in the Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, with a view to the study of the teeth and dental disease. The results are published in Memoirs of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum, vol. 9, pt. 3. The teeth show comparatively little irregularity, only 9-9 per cent. Only 17-2 per cent, have the incisor knocked out as a sign of grief for a relative. This custom was more prevalent among the men than the women, and on Hawaii than on the other islands. There is little caries owing to developmental faults. From forty to sixty years of age it increases considerably, and is more prevalent in mandibular than in the maxillary teeth. Alveolar abscesses grow more prevalent as age advances, as does pyorrhea; between forty and sixty years of age only 6-57 per cent, are free from it. As regards the jaws, there are more orthognathous females than males and little prognathism in either sex. The majority of males and females show a greater height and width of the ramus of the mandible on the left side and a greater height of the body of the mandible on the right side. The males of the island of Hawaii show a greater bigonal width than those of the other islands.
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Research Items. Nature 121, 396–398 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/121396a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/121396a0