Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/136

 *fore, acid fruits, drinks, or dressings are hurtful, if taken constantly.

There is much discussion whether sugar, sugar candy, confectionery, and similar "goodies," ought to be renounced. We think a moderate indulgence in pure sugar and well-made confections entirely harmless. The sugar changes to an acid in the mouth if retained there, so that the habit of keeping candy long between the teeth, or eating it very constantly, has its dangers. Then some confections, such as sour-drops, tamarinds, and others, are acidulated by a little tartaric or weak sulphuric acid, which is seriously and immediately hurtful. Clean cane sugar and maple sugar are used in extraordinary quantities where they are produced, and they do not corrode the teeth at all. So let the children keep their mint sticks, and don't debar them from the sugar-plums. It is possible they may live long, and find few pleasures at once more enjoyable and more innocent.

"Use as not abusing," is the rule. Teeth were never meant for nut-crackers, nor for scissors to cut thread, as so many women seem to think while sewing, nor for a rack to hold scissors, pins, and needles, nor for a corkscrew to pull a cork from a bottle, nor for pincers or a vice to hold a piece of muslin, nor for any of a hundred purposes to which they are daily put.

"But I have used them thus for years, and it has not hurt them at all."