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Copyright, ltlS, by the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved. New Things to SAVE Your TEETH and Cure Sore Gums A RECENT dental clinic in New York City showed a number of wonderful new advances in den tistry, bu. most of all it proved bow little the average man knows about the work done to his teeth. For instance, how many patients are aware that half the hard cement fillings, known as “porcelain cements" or artificial enamels, are spoiled by heating •when the dentist trims them into shape with his little whirling disk? If the dentist greases his disk with cocoa butter or some other lubricant, no heating and no harm results. Heat causes the filling to expand in the cavity and later, in contracting, to pull away from the tooth and leave space for saliva and decay to enter. As everyone knows, ether, chloroform, laughing gas <tnd other narcotics will make a patient insensible and this condition is known as “anaesthesia.” But few people have heard of a condition known as “analgesia.” Analgesia is a way station on the road to anaesthesia, where the patient is conscious, can hear, see and talk, but cannot feel pain. "At the clinic were two new de vices for producing analgesia. A Real “Painless Dentistry” and a Remedy at Last for Pyorrhea and Loose Teeth *' » ii . ..UlUli.. ...... nmK <Vi/v til/vnrl Inna llir If umilld f>1oOtl 11 rn Aut Both work by means of a little mask which fits over the nose, but leaves the mouth free for the dentist’s work, and for the patient to breathe air whenever he sees fit. One machine supplies a mixture of nitrous-oxide < laughing gas) and oxygen, while the other causes analgesia through a secret compound gas known as “somnoform." As soon as the usually painful part, the actual cutting, is done, the little nose mask is removed. While the dentist inserts the filling, shapes and polishes It, the patient rids himself of the last fumes of the analgesic and ateps out of the chair feeling just as be did when he got in. There is no dizziness or nausea. This is real, painless dentistry and anyone whose teeth are sensitive enough to make it worth while would do well to hunt up an "analgesic” dentist. The drug stores are full of tooth powders and pastes, good and bad, for cleaning the teeth, but now comes not a cleanser, but a polisher for the teeth. , It Is a little white powder called "Carmi-Lustro," and must be applied to the teeth dry. First the teeth are given a quick rub with a bit of cotton roll or a .handkerchief. This is followed by a dry rub with a pinch of the powder on a lining cloth or cotton roll. The polish, which comes immediately, is intended not only for appearance, but to prevent decay. Thin strips of tough paper are used to polish between the teeth. If the teeth are kept perfectly polished it is impossible for them to decay. Though it is either your own fault or your dentist’s, or both, if ypu ever wear them, false teeth in then- new improvements are very interesting. They are now made bo one can chew with a grinding motion, as is natural, instead of the straight up and down chop which lias always betrayed the owner of false teeth. A startling but successful feat of dental surgery is implanting individual false teeth in the mouth on metal roots. The metal is iridio-platinum in the form of a latticed cylinder. A hole is first cut in the jaw bone. Into this hole the cylinder is forced. In a few weeks a bony growth forms, connecting the metal cylinder with the Jaw-bone and holding it firm ly. The false tooth is then conn<*ted to the end of the metal cylinder. How You Breathe the New Analgesia and Feel No Pain, Although You Know What I> Going on All the Time. The moat important of all the exhibits was prob ably the Dunlop treatment for “recession of the gums.” This common and hitherto incurable affliction is one of the manifestations of a disease called “Pyorrhe* or “Rlgg’s Disease.” It begins with a simple inflamma tlon of the gums around some one tooth. Its progress Is very slow and insidious. Spreading from one tooth to another It also travels inward between the tooth and the gum and gradually but steadily progresses to the jaw bone Itself. There is never any great pain, at least at the start, and the inflammation and tiny drops of pus which ooze out from the gum pass almost unnoticed. Finally there comes a time when one or two teeth become isoae and can be moved about with the fingers. This is enough to alarm most anyone and the dentist’s attention is pretty sure to be called. These cases are noi welcome to the dentist because he has always known there was ao satisfactory remedy for the condition. One attempt at a cure is called “scal ing.” It consists in reaching up with an instrument between the gum and the tooth and scraping the root. This torture results in temporary stopping of the pus formation, but the gums and the teeth are tender for months afterward and then back comes the disease. The custom has been to scrape a second and a third time and so on until finally the jaw itself is reached. At this point the tooth is either removed or becomes rigidly fixed in the jaw. This condition brings on in curable neuralgia. How little dentists are able to do with the old methods was proved by the number who offered them selves as subjects at the clinic for demonstration of the new treatment. This consists in applying a fine gentle spray to the gums right where they meet the tooth. The vital principle of the spray is oxygen. It has been agreed in the medical profession that if oxygen could be introduced into the circulation of the bipod locally, it would clean up most any sort of chronic inflammation. Professor Jacques Loeb, of the Rockefeller Institute, one of the greatest biological authorities, has proved that life is a process of burn ing—that is of applying »oxygen to substances with which It will unite. Death is the stoppage of this burn ing. The faster we burn the more intense is the vital process and the slower we burn the nearer we come to death. The body may he full of life generally and yet be burning very sluggishly in some one little back eddy of the system. This is the case in Pyorrhea or inflam mation of the gums. The tiny blood vessels are dis tended. flabby and weak. They are overburdened with pus and the blood stream is so slow and clogged, that the whole neighborhood is starved of oxygen. Though it has been clear enough that oxygen was the one thing needed to burn up the rubbish and free the clogged blood stream, there has never been any way of introducing this vital gas. Oxygen has been applied in various manners, but the trouble has always been that this gas has unfortunately burned up healthy and unhealthy tissues alike. It was like burning your house to get rid of the rats. The new Dunlop method applies oxygen in a form that has a special liking for diseased tissue. The tiny spray is not forced up into the gums, it goes there of its own accord searching out pus and diseased matter, burrowing and pursuing its way even back into the roof of the mouth when the disease extends that far. The seat of Pyorrhea is not at the edge of the gums where It first appears, but down deep at the head of certain glands which are connected by tubes with the surface. No instrument can search these tubes and no medi cine can be forced into them. The new oxygen com pound works its way up of its own accord if disease is there. If not, it stays out. When a mouth has been cured of the disease the spray refuses to enter the tis sue any longer. The Reason We STAND ON ONE LEG to Rest W ATCH the people waiting for a subway train or for a street car at the end of a day’s worjt^ How many of them are standing on one leg? All? Well, nearly all. Yet, when you come to think of it. It is queer that it should be more restful to put your whole weight on one leg until It Is tired, then on the other, and so forth, moving backward and forward constantly, instead of supporting the weight evenly all the time on two feet, which would then, one would im agine, not grow as tired. Yet that this one-leg plan is a true and wise plan for securing a rest is made clear by the fact that in all the armies of the world “stand at ease” is a position in which all the weight is put on the one foot, and the knee of the other leg is flexed. The whole matter depends on the fact that man Is not. yet sufficiently accustomed to the upright position. As a relief from standing upright he will lean against a pillar or lamp-post, and if It is possible to find a projec tion slightly above the level of the ground he will put iiis foot on It. Witness the "deadly fourth rail” of the bar-room, which is placed here for that purpose and Use WATER to Cure Nervousness D r. HARVEY BOUGHTON, the English nerve spe cialist, recently said, in an address, that all neurasthenics, that is, people with unhealthy nerves, have nothing more than nerves that are dry, and suffer from an insufficiency of fluid in the tissues of the body, which really go to make up the body's lubrication. Moat people, he says, probably suffer in a degree fro this, even though they are not conscious of any definite symptoms. He believes this disease could easily be eradicated if people would only supply their systems with plenty of good, clear, cold water. The human body is so adjusted that one part cannot suffer without all other parts suffering. If by neglect our nerves are dried up through lack of fluid, then it is a certainty that the wheels of our intricate body machinery are being clogged by reason of waste mat ter hicb is not washed away. It can be readily seen that by the use of water a threefold service is done. It feeds, it washes, and it carries away the cinders of the body furnace, and through the want of it we are exposed to many and great dangers. The tissues become too dry, the blood becomes thick, unhealthy and flows sluggishly, and the retained waste of the body sets up a condition which the doctors call “autointoxication,” or self-poisoning. This condition may give rise to almost any known symptoms, from the simple pipiple to heart failure, and is really responsible for most of the semi-invalids with whom the world is largely peopled. Dr. Boughton then gave certain rules which he said would tend to make for a healthy' set of nerves and a healthier and happier body. He observed that people do not all need the same amount of water, and it may take a little experimenting to find out just how much should be taken in each case. It has been stated by physicians that five or six pints should be taken dur ing the twenty-four hours. Of this, he said, only a mod erate quantity should be taken with the meals, but It was a great mistake to take no water with the meals, but that it was a greater mistake to wash food down with water, and especially with Ice water. Dr. Boughton said the best time for water drinking is at night time and early in the morning, and itris well to form the habit of slowly sipping, during the bath and while dressing, two or three glasses of cold— though not ice-cold—water, and then to sip two or three more glasses at bedtime, and again two or three more glasses an hour or two before luncheon and be fore dinner. Then the doctor assured his audience that in a very jihort time the value of this habit would become ap parent in the general improvement in digestion, temper Ind appearance. that purpose only, because men will stay longer at the bar (and consequently buy more drinks’ if they can put their feet in such a position that one of them gives the idea of a hand holding on to something. And if our feet were bare, instead of booted, they would curl around that brass rail in just the same way that our hands close instinctively on anything they touch. Because man as yet cannot stand upright without dif ficulty, the muscles have a greater piece of work to do than they can bear. The erect position is only main tained by a very complicated cross-strain, one set of muscles pulling forward and the other backward, and every movement we make causes a new adjustment. Of course, if the hip bone (femurl fitted vertically into the bones of the pelvic girdle, instead of at an angle, and if that was directly under the spine, we could stand erect without any more muscular strain than a certain amount of balancing. But these joints work at angles, just as does the knee, and absolutely all that keeps us from tumbling down is the strength of the muscles that hold these joints in position. When we stand on one leg, however, in order to give the muscles a chance to ease up, we naturally throw the weight of the body to one side, and this places such joints as the hip more directly up and down, reducing the width of the angle, and therefore giving less trouble to the muscles, even while the whole weight is on that leg. In the meantime, the other leg is gtting a much- needed rest. Then, as soon as the long-continued weight of the whole body has tired the leg that is bearing it, the other foot is ready to take up the strain, and we shift the feet, throwing the body to the opposite side. Unfortunately, unlike the storks, we cannot stand on one leg indefinitely, and this for two reasons—that we have more weight to carry in proportion to our muscle, and that the muscular structure itself is more fatty and less elastic. But it is wise to use the plan as much as possible, and few things will help more to prevent fa tigue than the device of standing on one foot as long as one can, using the other merely as a balance. And, by the way, if transportation facilities grow much worse in crowded cities, street cars will soon be patting up signs, “Standing Room on One Leg Only!” The German Method of Preventing Blindness at Birth I T is a fact, deplorable but true, that a very large proportion of the blindness in the United States begins in infancy. It is often due to some taint in the parent, but that does not affect the result, which is easily preventable. It is proven that this blindness among in fants can be easily prevented by proper treat ment immediately after birth. If a few drops of a solution of nitrate of silver be put into each eye of the infant just after it is born, blindness of this type will be prevented. The treatment with nitrate of silver will not do any harm to the eyes- of any infant, so it is only an act of wise precaution to treat every infant, without exception, with these few drops that will act as an absolute preventive of this awful misfortune. in Germany and other parts of Europe it is the law that every physician must use the so lution of silver nitrate upon the eyes of every child that he brings into the world—and this under penalty of a heavy fine. The same regulation, if put upon the sta tute books of every one of our forty-eight States, would prevent more than Half of the blindness that will otherwise occur in the years to come. If the public is aroused to the importance of this precaution every parent will insist upon his or her infant re ceiving this treatment, which is far more necessary than the first bath, and should pre cede it. There is nothing more pitiful than the blind child, and if we can make it impossible by so simple a precaution as this, why is it not done? Why Your Office or Store May Be the Wrong Color I T has long been known that the store keeper who decorates his store outside and inside artistically and attractively will do much more business than his next- door competitor whose store is unattractive, although this competitor may sell equally good goods at equally low prices But the psychology of color in business has now gone much deeper, and it has re cently been discovered that business may be more eieiently conducted in an office that is properly decorated than in a glaring, ugly and unattractive office. And this goes even further. It has been proved that a body of directors will find it much easier to concentrate their minds suc cessfully upon their business in a directors’ room that is quietly, harmoniously and rest- fully decorated than in a big barren room, a tiny, stuffy, over-furnished room, or a room with glaring decorations. The clothing store man. it is now claimed, is unwise to make his window decorations meaning the woodwork or walls of bie show window, permanent. For instance, if he has it panellec in oak or cherry or some such wood, such as well appointed offices are fin ished in, it makes a splendid background for the display of business suits, for it gives them the same environment they are likely to have when being worn by business men. But if this storekeeper wants to display some yachting suits or golf suits or evening suits, his background of oak panels is not at all suited. ' For outing suits the decorations might be of green-stained wood, with perhaps a bit of light blue draperies. Or for the dress suits, white and gilt enamel would be far better than dark wood panels. Dark wood is seldom seen in reception rooms and theatres and such places where evening clothese are worp. For a director's room, mild, restful colors are needed that are in harmony. The secret of this is that the decorations should be of such a nature that they do not attract the attention of the men, but rather appear to be as though they ‘‘belonged.’ A room done In white and gilt with red panels, or even with loud paper and bright pictures, gaudy rugs and odd furniture, would certainly take the minds of the men off their subject. Some member might be proposing a deal, and an other member, although he tried to listen, would be looking at a gaudy rug patterns or a dashing picture or involuntarily scowling at white and gold woodwork An instance has been quoted of where a business man, dressed in quiet browns, seated in his office, which was finished in dark oak, purposely wore a bright emerald scarf pin. Everything in the room was in harmony, quiet and not likely to distract any one, and this business man sitting facing his business caller actually had an advantage over him because his bright green scarf pin stood out so boldly among the quiet brown tones that it distracted the caller and gave the wearer of the pin an advantage over him in their business deal, which is always a mental combat. Rooms where large office forces work should be decorated in a restful manner. It will enable the employes to feel better, to do more work and not have their minds dis tracted. Students in efficiency are learning more and more that there is actually a psychology of color in business and that it has a defin able value. How You VENTILATE Your LUNGS by YAWNING W HEN any one yawns in the home a re mark is generally made, “You are sleepy, you had better go to bed,” but a yawn Is by no means a sign that you should retire, rather it means that your lungs need ventilating and thai nature makes you ventilate them involuntarily by means of a good, hearty yawn. From this it seems that the popular impres sion that it is impolite to yawn in public is not correct. The belief is based on the as sumption that a person only yawns when he or she is tired or sleepy and that the conver sation or lack of it or dull people or environ ment causes the tired feeling. But this should not be held up against any one, for to yawn does not necessarily mean that the person is bored. It means they have not exercised their lungs sufficiently in fresh air, and must exercise them artificially by means of the yawn. With ordinary breathing the lungs are not completely filled with air, nor are they en tirely emptied every time you exhale during natural respiration. This leaves a quantity of dead air in the lungs, generally away down Tke Line of Dashes (A) Represent the Pure Air Being Drawn in, and the Line of Dots Shows the Foul Air (B. Being Driven Out. Arrows at (C) Show Where Foul Air Stays in Lungs until a Yawn Drives It out. in the lower lobes. This is called ‘residual’' air and after it stays there a while and be comes foul, nature casts about for some means to make you get rid of it. The yawn is the thing, so nature makes you yawn. You open your mouth to its fullest extent, throw back your head, strain with the back muscles of the jaw and you can then feel your lungs move as ..they force out all the foul air and take in fresh. In this manner are the lungs actually ventilated. Yawning also ventilates the air passages in the mouth, throat and upper portion of the chest leading to the lungs. And again, yawn ing is really an aid to hearing. The cracking sound which you so often hear when giving an extra big yawn is due to the stretching and opening of the Eus tachian tubes. These tubes communicate be tween the ears and the back of the throat. If they are congested, which happens when you have a bad cold in the head, people corn-plain of deafness. If you feel inclined to yawn then do-so. It is nature’s way of cleaning out your lungs and air passages. Why Some Dreams Are Really Healthy F REUD, the great German neurologist, who has put our dreams to a scientific test and told us the meaning of them, declares that our customary phrase of "Good night, and pleasant dreams” haS a deeper significance than most of us realize. He says that in wishing a friend pleasant dreams we are wish ing him good health, for certain dreams are healthy. A sleep with pleasant dreams is more beneficial, according to Freud, than a dreamless sleep. Of course, a sleep with bad dreams, nightmares, and the like is by no means restful or healthful, but a night of fairly good slumber, interspersed with a few dreams of a decidedly pleasant nature is really restful and, being extremely restful, is healthful. Nearly every one, according to this authority, feels rather dull upon awakening from a stolid, dreamless sleep and frequently is so dull he does not feel dis posed to perform his usual good day’s work, but to awaken after a night in which you have experienced pleasant dreams the nerve cells of the brain have been pleasantly stimulated and you feel bright and active and cheerful. Dreams that give wholesome and happy emotions seem to leave the sleeper with fresh vigor and an eagerness for his day’s work. Since the reasoning faculty is inactive during sleep, it is not to be wondered that many of our dreams are impossible and weird. Sleep, releasing the brake on reason, allows our sleeping mind to manipulate the stronger thoughts that occupied our brain during the waking hours. If, however, the thoughts or the wishes of the dreamer, when awake, were strong enough, his dream is quite likely to be rather sane, and if his wish es were pleasant ones in his dream, it is natural to see them fulfilled. It is not difficult to make a logical reasoning from this to the effect that to have our dearest wishes fulfilled in our dreams is really bene ficial, for during the dreaming the effect upon the mind and from the mind to the body, as all conditions of the mind affect the body, is exactly the same as though we were awake and the wish came true. It makes us happy and to be happy is one of the greatest laws of health. There is no argument then against Freud’s maim that pleasant dreams are really very beneficial for everyone. If you go out to spend a Dleasant evening with friends, or attend a good play, or if you go on an outing and have a jolly time, you are sure to feel much better for it. But if the play you saw was bad, if the social you attended was dull, if ypu quarrelled with the guests, or if your outing was a failure, you feel very much worse than you would if you had not gone out at all. And so It Is with dreams. No dreams makes your rest rather dull, like staying cooptd up indoors; bad dreams leave you fret ful and feeling badly; good dreams leave you happy and ' refreshed.