Abstract
Teeth of Finnish Lapps A DISCUSSION by Helen Mellanby (Brit. Med. J., April 27, 1940) of dental deformation and caries among Finnish Lapps, and their relation to changes which have taken place in the national diet, is based upon observation of 1,253 teeth of seventy children between two and fourteen years of age, undertaken in June 1939. The teeth are charted for hypoplasia and caries. The teeth of both Inari and Skoltje Lapp children are of very imperfect structure. Only 25 per cent of the deciduous teeth, and in the permanent teeth only 6-7 per cent, were of good or normal structure; and even these figures may be too high in view of allowances for attrition. As might be anticipated from the poorness of structure, caries is rampant. All children over four years of age were affected, and out of the total of seventy only three were caries-free. Of deciduous teeth 55·3 per cent and of permanent teeth 44-5 per cent were carious. Among Eskimos of East Greenland, only 2.4 per cent of the deciduous teeth and 1-1-4 per cent of the permanent teeth in the ages 0-13 years were affected. In the cranial material, only a proportion of the teeth remained. Nevertheless, comparative examination shows a decided deterioration in structure and increase in carious affection in the modern material. There is evidence to suggest that deterioration set in about 1900 when Finns began to immigrate in numbers. Further, in the last century or more the diet of the Lapps has changed. Like that of the ‘uncivilized’ Eskimos, it was almost entirely carnivorous, a low calcium intake being made good by chewing bones. In the modern dietary there are important differences, notably cheap margarine, coffee, oatmeal, sugar and potatoes. Cereals are consumed in large quantities during the winter. If allowance is made for the anti-calcifying effect of a high cereal content of the diet, it may account for a deterioration in tooth structure which is correlated with a greater liability to caries.
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Research Items. Nature 145, 978–979 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145978a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145978a0