Abstract
DURING the recent International Orthodontic Congress in London, Prof. Elliot Smith delivered an address on “Evolutionary Tendencies in the Jaws and Teeth”. He pointed out that, in the human child, there is a delay of four years after the milk teeth have erupted before the permanent teeth commence to appear, and a further ten to fifteen years are required to complete its dental equipment. Up to the seventh year, that is, during the pause between milk and permanent teeth, the child is growing a very large brain, and, again, for a further period of fifteen years or so, when his dental affairs are relatively sluggish, he is learning how to put his complicated cerebral equipment to its fullest biological uses. During this period he develops a chin, because the growth of the tooth-bearing part is restrained by the long delay in the eruption of his teeth. The delay in tooth and jaw development is undoubtedly due to the growth of the brain and the subsequent development of its full functions, which disturbs the orderly process of uniform growth of the jaws and eruption of teeth.
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Evolutionary Tendencies in the Jaws and Teeth. Nature 128, 501 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1038/128501a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/128501a0