From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Tue Mar 14 2000 - 20:25:37 MST
CurtAdams@aol.com wrote:
> In us, yes, but in our hunter-gatherer ancestors tooth loss might have been
> a big problem.
Ja, in fact I was once involved in a humanitarian effort to help a group
of isolated people in Central America. It was noted that the people
looked beautiful and healthy, until it was realized that they were all
young, the oldest was around 40. Turns out the problem was what
amounted to the digestive system wearing out, caused by tooth loss,
caused by excessive wear, caused by the staple of their diet, which
was tough indigenous grain, which was being ground in hollowed
stones called metates. As a grinding agent, the women would add
a bit of sand to the grain, which would in fact make the grinding
job easier, however, the slightly gritty bread that was made therefrom
still contained some of the quartz dust, which would erode the enamel,
eventually causing the loss of the tooth and subsequent increase in
the effort needed by the digestive system to process the course meal.
So we supplied them with three things: a grinding wheel, a reverse
osmosis water filter (which eliminated amoebiasis) and a supply of
kaopectate, which prevented many infant deaths. In the long run
the effect was to cause the population to increase beyond what
that high desert location could support, and the young people
began to drift off to Mexico City to lives of who knows what,
but with their limited education of things modern (none), and
lack of language skills they probably ended up as prostitutes
or worse. We were debating discontinuing the effort when the
only practical way into their mesa, an airplane, was stolen... spike
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