historical and scientific perspectives on the health of canada's first ...

The oral cavity has long been recognized as a good barometer
of an individual's underlying nutritional <strong>and</strong> overall health
status. The most obvious measure of the dental health problem
is its sheer magnitude. It was estimated, for example, that by
the year 1960 the then 180,000,000 people in the United States
had accumulated at least 700,000,000 unfilled cavities. Various
diseases found in the supporting bone <strong>and</strong> gingival tissues by
age 50 were extant in at least 50% of the population, <strong>and</strong> by age
65 in virtually 100 %. 106 It has been conservatively estimated
that up to 75 % of North Americans have distinct irregularities
in the development of the dental arches <strong>and</strong> facial form, yet a
1930 study where 1,276 Inca skulls were systematically
examined failed to find a single instance of deformity in the
dental arches. It was concluded that this was the result of a system of living, using nutrition in
the very early part of the formative period, which is very closely in accord with nature's
fundamental laws of reproduction. 107
Disease in western society has been progressively manifesting itself among children <strong>and</strong> youth.
By the mid-twentieth century, close to 60% of college-age youth were estimated to be clinically
ill. Notably, a screening survey of entrants to college <strong>and</strong> university in 1956 found no less than
589 diseases or physiological abnormalities per 1,000 students admitted. 108 It is not appropriate
or accurate to explain the absence of historic references to disease by saying that primitive
people just never lived long enough to reach the age at which such diseases attack. Today
teenagers are falling prey to many disorders. “Babies have tooth decay. The degenerative disease
cancer is the chief cause of death from disease among children.” 109
2.4 A WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON OF PROGRESSIVE DEGENERATION
Beginning in the early 1930's Weston Price D.D.S. undertook a 9 year epic journey covering
more than 150,000 miles worldwide in which were recorded the physical, social <strong>and</strong>
psychological conditions of "primitives" living (to varying
degrees) in relative isolation <strong>and</strong> in their traditional manner.
Comparisons were made between these <strong>and</strong> other groups of
the same ethnicity living nearby who had adopted more
“civilized” costumes <strong>and</strong> the typical highly processed foods
of modern civilization. This unique <strong>and</strong> monumental study
could never be replicated today.
His research included Aboriginal peoples living in the Yukon
Territory, British Columbia, Manitoba, <strong>and</strong> Ontario. His
reports <strong>and</strong> photographs serve as testimony to the formerly
superb state of Aboriginal health, <strong>and</strong> the sorry state to which
it has since declined. Price had ample opportunity to observe
at first h<strong>and</strong> the sad wreckage produced by the introduction
of commercial foods into traditional life. His research
produced hundreds of photographs of differing groups raised
on either natural diets, or diets of refined flour, sugars, <strong>and</strong>
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