THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS O1F THE DIET AND THE WATER CONTENT OF MONKEY TEETH

¹ Dept. of Physiology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, N. Y.

Ten Rhesus monkeys were divided into two groups of five each. Both groups received essentially the same diet, except that the physical consistency of the food was altered in the preparation so that the control group received food requiring vigorous mastication and the experimental group received food requiring little or no mastication. The control group received in addition raw whole wheat grain and sugar cane to insure prolonged and forceful chewing.

After eight weeks, the four first permanent molars were removed from each animal, cleaned and weighed after drying in air for 12 hours: subsequently the teeth were dried to constant weight and reweighed. The weight loss was then calculated as a percent of the initial weight.

The control teeth lost an average of 8.17 per cent, the experimentals an average of 9.05 per cent, that is, the molars of the animals on an entirely soft diet had a water content 10.77 per cent higher than the molars of the vigorously chewing animals.