TEETH, the bones placed in the jaws for chewing food, that it may be the more easily digested in the stomach. The anatomical structure of the teeth has already been ascribed under ANATOMY. The diseases to which they are liable, as well as the most successful remedies for removing them, are fully detailed under MEDICINE and SURGERY.
Much attention has been paid to the beauty and preservation of the teeth among most nations. The Romans rubbed and washed them with great care; and when they lost them, supplied their place with artificial teeth made of ivory; and sometimes, when loose, bound them with gold. Ligatures of wire have been found to hurt the natural teeth with which the artificial are connected: whereas silken twist cannot affect them to any considerable degree for several years.
Guilleman gives us the composition of a paste for making artificial teeth, which shall never grow yellow: the composition is white wax granulated, and melted with a little gum elemi, adding powder of white mastic, coral, and pearl.
When several teeth are out in the same place, it is best to make a set, or the number wanted, out of one piece, all adhering together, which may be fastened to the two next of the sound or natural teeth. And even a whole set of artificial teeth may be made for one or both jaws, so well fitted to admit of the necessary motions, and so conveniently retained in the proper situation by means of springs, that they will answer every purpose of natural teeth, and may be taken out, cleaned, and replaced, by the patient himself with great ease.
The common trick of mountebanks and other such practitioners, is to use various washes for teeth, the sudden effects of which, in cleaning and whitening the teeth, surprise and please people; but the effects are very pernicious. All the strong acid spirits will do this. As good a mixture as any thing can be, on this occasion, is the following: take plantane-water an ounce, honey of roses two drams, muriatic acid ten drops; mix the whole together, and rub the teeth with a piece of linen rag dipped in this every day till they are whitened. The mouth ought to be well washed with cold water after the use of this or any other acid liquor; and indeed the best of all teeth washes is cold water, with or without a little salt; the constant use of this will keep them clean and white, and prevent them from aching.
After all the numerous cures which have been proposed for preventing the toothach, we will venture to recommend the keeping the teeth clean as the most efficacious, and avoiding every kind of hot food, especially hot liquids, as tea, &c. They who are constantly using powders generally destroy their teeth altogether, as the valetudinarian does his health.
TEETHING in children. See MEDICINE.
TEFF, a kind of grain, sown all over Abyssinia, from which is made the bread commonly used throughout the country. We have no description of this plant but from Mr Bruce, who says that it is herbaceous; and
that from a number of weak leaves surrounding the root proceeds a stalk of about 28 inches in length, not perfectly straight, smooth, but jointed or knotted at particular distances. This stalk is not much thicker than that of a carnation or julyflower. About eight inches from the top, a head is formed of a number of small branches, upon which it carries the fruit and flowers; the latter of which is small, of a crimson colour, and scarcely perceptible by the naked eye but from the opposition of that colour. The pistil is divided into two, seemingly attached to the germ of the fruit, and has at each end small capillaments forming a bristle. The stamens are three in number; two on the lower side of the pistil, and one on the upper. These are each of them crowned with two oval stigmata, at first green, but after crimson. The fruit is formed in a capsula, consisting of two conical hollow leaves, which, when closed, seems to compose a small conical pod, pointed at the top. The fruit or seed is oblong, and is not so large as the head of the smallest pin; yet it is very prolific, and produces these seeds in such quantity as to yield a very abundant crop in the quantity of meal.
Our author, from the similarity of the names, conjectures it to be the tiphia mentioned, but not described, by Pliny; but this conjecture, which he acknowledges to be unsupported, is of very little importance.
There are three kinds of meal made from teff, of which the best (he says) is as white as flour, exceedingly light, and easily digested; the second is of a browner colour; and the last, which is the food of soldiers and servants, is nearly black. This variety he imagines to arise entirely from the difference of soils in which the seeds are sown, and the different degrees of moisture to which the plant is exposed when growing. The manner of making the meal or flour into bread is by taking a broad earthen jar, and having made a lump of it with water, they put it into an earthen jar at some distance from the fire, where it remains till it begins to ferment or turn sour; they then bake it into cakes of a circular form, and about two feet in diameter: it is of a spongy soft quality, and not a disagreeable fourth taste. Two of these cakes a-day, and a coarse cotton cloth once a-year, are the wages of a common servant.
At their banquets of raw meat, the flesh being cut in small bits, is wrapt up in pieces of this bread, with a proportion of fossil salt and Cayenne pepper. Before the company sits down to eat, a number of these cakes of different qualities are placed one upon the other, in the same manner as our plates, and the principal people sitting first down, eat the white teff; the second or coarser sort serves the second rate people that succeed them, and the third is for the servants. Every man, when he is done, dries or wipes his fingers upon the bread which he is to leave for his successor, for they have no towels; and this is one of the most beastly customs among them.
Of this teff bread the natives make a liquor, by a process which our author describes in the following words: The bread, when well toasted, is broken into small pieces, which are put into a large jar, and have warm water poured upon them. It is then set by the fire, and frequently stirred for several days, the mouth of the jar being close covered. After being allowed to settle three or four days, it acquires a fourth taste, and is what they call bouza, or the common beer of the country. The bouza in Atbara is made in the same manner, only instead
stead of teff, cakes of barley meal are employed. Both are very bad liquors, but the worst is that made of barley.