Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/265

 Popular Science Monthly

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���Care should be taken to follow the curve

of the gum with the entire face of the

tooth-brush

Floss silk, SO this physician has noted, is another great corrective for ailing teeth. The silk should be passed between teeth, across gums and drawn rapidly, even roughly. The discom- fort may be slight, but it is sufficient to cause most people to avoid the prac- tice, although they would perhaps be somewhat more enthusiastic towards this particular tooth cleanser if they knew that it would help greatly to- wards avoiding gout, rheumatism, val- vular heart disease and ulcer of the stomach.

Concerning the general mechanics of. tooth brushing, there are three im- portant actions to be borne in mind. The first is the rotary motion, where- by all the gums and the teeth in front of the second molars are cleansed by a vigorous whirling motion. Second, the drawing motion wherin the mid- dle of the brush is placed behind the wisdom teeth and drawn vigorously across the gums. Third, the drawing motion wherein the brush is placed back of the last molar and drawn sharply forward along the gum margins and the teeth.

It may be mentioned that healthy gums can stand the same vigorous friction as can be borne with impun- ity by the finger nails.

���Hard-Pressed Germany Invents New Foods

POTATO sausages are being made in Germany which are said to taste a great deal like blood sausages, and are not a great deal lower in food value. The price of the potato sausages (called also K-sausages) is much less than the blood sausages.

It was found possible in Germany to purify bacteria-carrying oysters by al- lowing a stream of pure, fresh, filtered sea-water to run over them, in tanks, for four or five days. Xo sickness resulted from eating these oysters.

Study of the milk marketed in Zittau, Germany, up to the present time of the war shows that scarcity of good fodder for the cattle does not decrease the fat content of the milk, but only the quan- tity of the milk.

���The middle bristles of the brush should

be placed at the back of the third upper

molar and drawn briskly forward along

the gum margin

��This movement will clean the backs of the teeth which are too often neglected

In Germany the comparative quality of the milk can be decided by the use of certain bacteria. Five are used, called respectively and alarmingly the "Danish streptococci,"' "Jaroslawer di- plococci," "Guntherschen diplococci," "Russian lactic acid streptococci" and "Bacillus bulgaricus.'' The Danish strep- tococci can live only in fairly good milk, the Jaroslawer diplococci in worse, and so on down the list until we reach the Bacillus bulgaricus, which is tough enough to live in very bad milk. How- ever, there is milk so bad that not even the accommodating Bacillus bulgaricus can live in it.

An elderberry wine is being made in ("lermany which is so like grape wine that it can easily be used as an adulter- ant of grape wine. It can be detected by chemical analysis, however.

New methods for determining husk residue in meals and flours have to be used, since the German war orders to grind more of the husk into the flours.

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