The means and principles of this system are specific, definite and positive means for the correction of mouth breathing. In many infants and children mouth breathing may be present the entire time throughout the twenty-four hours. More often it is intermittently indulged in. It may only be present during sleep, and at that, only at intervals and not during the entire sleeping period. It may be absent for days or weeks and then return when the child has eaten bad food and in addition taken a fresh cold, which disturbs principally the child’s common foundation of disease and congestion and swelling of the tissues of the interior of the nose develop.
Any child suffering with repeated infections has a lowered resistance. On careful investigation, it will be found that any child who is subjected to repeated infections is a mouth breather, and that the food eaten is bad. That the child is a mouth breather, may be unknown to the parents, but frequently it is known to the child. It will be recognized in time that the presence of lowered resistance (the frequent occurrence of infections, illnesses, cold) means that mouth breathing is present more or less and that the child is given bad food to eat, according to the rules of this system. Such an infant or child should be given the antisepticizing treatments and be put on the simple diet of this system.
It is surprising to observe how quickly the mouth breathing habit is overcome by the repeated use of the antisepticizing treatments, and the use of the simple diet only. Even children will state that they feel much better after one or two treatments and the restriction of their food to the simple diet. The writer has known children to ask for the antisepticizing treatments. They continue to improve under the continued use of the antisepticizing treatments and the simple diet. The child will sleep better, eat better and in every way feel better ; and be more obedient and orderly ; all nervousness and restlessness will disappear; the child will do much better in his school work; will be much less cranky and much easier to handle.
An important fact to be remembered is that the. germs of pyorrhea are laid in the gums of most people at this early and tender age just when mouth breathing is most indulged in. Mouth breathing and the factors and causes which give rise to mouth breathing make possible the infection of the gums and the development of the pyorrhea. At about 14 years of age the gums commence to become spongy and swelling develops between the teeth, in those who are in danger of losing their teeth at an early age. Unless their common foundation of disease is eliminated in proper time, the basis for their pyorrhea is laid and thus the ultimate loss of their teeth is accounted for. A decided redness and congestion of the mucous membrane is evident in the gums of the front teeth of the lower jaw. There is a small elevation or swelling at the highest part of the gums between the teeth. The gums bleed easily. The timely eradication of the common foundation of disease of these young people who are destined to lose their teeth, will prevent this loss.
The proper answer to the question, how to prevent and cure pyorrhea is inseparably interwoven with the subject of the prevention and relief of mouth breathing in the young. To successfully prevent or cure mouth breathing, we must properly attend to the nose by the antisepticizing treatments and by further common foundationing if necessary. The diet must be restricted carefully to the simple or scientific diet of this system.
These mouth breathing children are narrow chested, have stooping shoulders and winged scapulas (protruding shoulder blades). They are lazy in their ways, lack the proper amount of energy and mental alertness which they naturally possess but which is temporarily suppressed by their common foundation of disease. Involuntarily and unconsciously they are lazy in their breathing habits ; they do not breathe as deeply as they should. All these and many other unpleasant and undesirable characteristics quickly disappear under the use of the antisepticizing treatments and the proper diet. It will surprise the parents and physician to see the remarkable improvement of the child in every way under the energetic use of the antisepticizing treatments. The chest becomes deeper, the shoulders begin to go back and square off ; the child is more energetic, more alert, keener mentally, less nervous and irritable, more companionable and sociable, and in every way, mentally, physically and psychically the child is as it should be.