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"The orthodontist who straightens the teeth and stimulates the jaws to proper development, is perhaps the only modern scientist who is definitely combatting the adverse evolutionary tendency of the human species," said E. A. Hooton, professor of Anthropology, in an address to students of the Dental School yesterday.
"Human evolution is largely a matter of brain expansion and jaw reduction. It has reached a stage now where we have bigger and possibly better brains than we can use, and smaller and worse jaws than the health of the individual and the preservation of the species demand. Eskimos are almost the only human race in whom dental degeneration is not manifest.
"L. W. Baker, professor of Orthodontia, has conducted classic experiments demonstrating the tremendous effect upon the growth and form of the face and head which is brought about by extracting the teeth from one side of the jaw of a growing animal. He is also making modern application of Hunter's experiments in pregnant animals, in which the feeding of madder, a yellowish vegetables substance, indicates that future dentistry will begin before the child is born, and proves for the first time that madder fed to a pregnant mother directly effects the bones and teeth of the unborn infant."
At the Harvard Dental School it is hoped that an enlargement of its plant and endowment will permit the establishment of a research department dealing with problems of human dental evolution.
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