x, and whooping-cough--are less
common in adolescence than they are in childhood, while the special
diseases of internal organs due to their overwork, or to their natural
tendency to degeneration, is yet far in the future. The chief troubles
of adolescents appear to be due to overstress which accompanies rapid
development, to the difficulty of the whole organism in adapting
itself to new functions and altered conditions, and no doubt in some
measure to the unwisdom both of the young people and of their
advisers.

This is not the place for a general treatise on the diseases of
adolescents, but a few of the commonest and most obvious troubles
should be noted.

The Teeth.--It is quite surprising to learn what a very large
percentage of young soldiers are refused enlistment in the army on
account of decayed or defective teeth, and anyone who has examined the
young women candidates for the Civil Service and for Missionary
Societies must have recognised that their teeth are in no way better
than those of the young men. In addition to several vacancies in the
dental series, it is by no means unusual to find that a candidate has
three or even five teeth severely decayed. The extraordinary thing is
that not only the young people and their parents very generally fail
to recognise the gravity of this condition, but that even their
medical advisers have frequently acquiesced in a state of things that
is not only disagreeable but dangerous. A considerable proportion of
people with decayed teeth have also suppuration about the margins of
the gums and around the roots of the teeth. This pyorrhoea
alveolaris, as it is called, constitutes a very great danger to the
patient's health, the purulent discharge teems with poisonous
micro-organisms, which being constantly swallowed are apt to give rise
to septic disease in various organs. It is quite probable that some
cases of gastric ulcer are due to this condition, so too are some
cases of appendicitis, it has been known to cause a peculiarly fatal
form of heart disease, and it is also responsible for the painful
swelling of the joints of the fingers, with wasting of the muscles and
general weakness which goes by the name of rheumatoid arthritis. In
addition to this there are many local affections, such as swollen
glands in the neck, that may be due to this poisonous discharge. One
would think that the mere knowledge that decayed teeth can cause all
this havoc would lead to a grand rush