Lemon Juice Dissolves the Teeth

This is what two scholars of dentistry found when they examined patients who had been drinking lemon juice as a remedy: they found that their teeth had dissolved because of this liquid they drank. In one patient they found that the upper front teeth had gone clear down to the gums. They looked into his history and found that for years he had been drinking lemon juice mixed with water, upon waking every morning.

Among the fifty there were 39 women, and the rest were men.

Many of them, men and women alike, drank it as a treatment for rheumatism; and some drank it as a treatment for constipation.

The effect of lemon upon the teeth has long been known. But it never became so clear, or on such a scale, until the recent years of this century, owing to its wide spread, and the spread of the habit of drinking it among people.

The dentists say that they do not, on this account, advise giving up the drinking of lemon, because it is a good source of vitamin B, one of the vitamins the body needs absolutely. But they do advise a change in the manner of taking it. It is not necessary for people to take it by sucking at it, nor is it necessary for the drinker to keep tasting it and rolling it about with his tongue over his teeth, savoring it at leisure. He can enjoy it without washing his teeth in it.

Besides, in the modern reed straws through which some people sip lemon drink there is an escape from all this.