Dentistry and Vitamins

Dentists as a class were the first profession to properly appraise and recognize the possible magnitude of the pathological consequences of vitamin deficiency. Today almost any dentist will agree with the statement that 99 per cent of the work he is called upon to do can be considered a direct or indirect result of improper and deficient diet.

Hardly ten years ago the dental student was told that there was no proven theory as to the real cause of carious teeth. He was led to think that the lack of coarse foods which mechanically acted to keep the teeth free from bacterial adhesions was the protective factor in those peoples whose diet prevented them from incurring tooth decay. This is the idea behind the false but well advertised slogan that “A clean tooth never decays.”

The writer takes some pride in the fact that he was possibly the first to point out the relationship between vitamin deficiency, endocrine depletion, and dental caries, in a paper entitled “Systemic Causes of Dental Caries” read before the senior class at Marquette University, in 1923. (Copy mailed free on request.)

Dr. Percy Howe of Boston was cited as to his findings that caries followed children’s diseases as a rule, and that those children (among the thousands checked) that had not had these infections had much better teeth. Evidence was presented at that time to show that the vitamin deficiency produced susceptibility to the children’s diseases as well as to caries, and the children’s diseases reacted to increase the susceptibility to both by a depletion of endocrines that depended upon the dietary intake of vitamins for their nutrition.

All the evidence that has accumulated since that time substantiates the conclusion. Vitamins A, B, C and.D were soon identified as important factors in the situation, B and C in particular, at least as regards to the endocrine situation. The further conclusion was drawn that the only logical method of insuring protection from all deficiency disease was to develop a “balanced ration,” as it were, of all the necessary vitamins, to supplement the usual denatured diet. “Catalyn” is the commercial result of research work done between 1923 and 1929 in the effort to supply such a product.

Clinical tests made with the new product soon demonstrated that it had powers never suspected to be present in a vitamin concentrate. Persons taking it as a pre-natal dental prophylactic, for instance, reported that it eliminated their toxic goiter, heart weakness, etc. Its possibilities as a remedy for the so-called incurable diseases have overshadowed its importance as a dental prophylactic and up to the present the sale of “Catalyn” has been almost exclusively for these other more urgent purposes.

All these effects were, of course, the direct result of supplying the endocrine organs with the necessary nutrition that had been lacking.

We are now beginning to accept the fact that any case of pyorrhea is nothing more than a relatively mild case of scurvy. It can be treated by the use of germicides, but the basic cause of the infection is the lowered resistance resulting from endocrine starvation.

The virulence of the attacking microbes is as a general rule inversely proportional to the degree of resistance of the victim, meaning that the lower the resistance of the patient, the more likely others are to be infected by germs from that source. It is a well known principle of bacteriology that microbes grown under inhibitive circumstances lose their virulence and vice versa.

When a person with a diseased and infected mouth begins the use of “Catalyn,” the pyorrhea begins to clear up, quicker naturally, if other measures supplement it, the job being completed, of course, only if all irritating calculus is removed. Loose teeth will tighten up in an unbelievable manner in 60 to 90 days. There is a definite regeneration of the supporting connective tissues, and receded gums seem to take on a new lease of life. There is a tendency for abscesses to localize with pus formation where there is opportunity for drainage, possibly swelling where there is not. “Catalyn” promotes the formation of red blood cells as well as white; we have laboratory records of cases where the red cell count increased 90 per cent in two weeks, in which there was no response to other remedies.

The Dentist needs “Catalyn” for all of his child patients.

For the pregnancy case. (Hyperemesis disappears).

For the heart case or toxic goiter patient to give them sufficient vitality to stand the ordeal of a “full mouth” extraction.

For all scurvy victims. (Don’t laugh, it’s the truth).

And for rickets. “The whole answer to rickets is not to be found in the supplying of Vitamin D. There are undoubtedly other factors and these are probably bound up with A, B and C deficiency and certain mineral deficiencies.” (Quigley, Notes on Vitamins & Diets.)

We do not expect you to believe these statements without further evidence, but you can supply that evidence yourself if you will give this “balanced ration of vitamins” a test. “Catalyn” has received a wide distribution during the last two years without any advertising other than its merits, and today the major portion of our business is to the medical profession for the treatment of the so-called “incurable” degenerative diseases.

The forces of Nature, given the opportunity (by an ample supply of the correct nutritive materials, can do wonders in restoring diseased tissue, and as to functional disorders arising from a vitamin deficiency or a consequent endocrine depletion, the improvement is often actually more than 100 per cent.