Part 17

“Of course not,” he reassured her. “That will be taken care of. What did you see above the back of the throat?”

“Little things like tiny stalactites hanging down.”

“Adenoids.”

“Where could she have gotten adenoids?” cried Mrs. Clyde.

“From her remotest imaginable ancestor, probably.”

“Why, aren’t they a disease?”

“No. An inheritance. The race has always had them. Probably they’re vestigial salivary glands, the use of which we’ve outgrown. Unfortunately they may overdevelop and block up the air-passages. Then they have to come out.”

For the first time in the conference Grandma Sharpless gathered force and speech.

“Young man,” she said solemnly—rather accusingly, in fact—“if the Lord put adenoids in the human nose he put ‘em there for some purpose.”

“Doubtless. But that purpose, whatever it may have been, no longer exists.”

“Everything in the human body has some use,” she persisted.

“Had,” corrected Dr. Strong. “Not has. How about your appendix?”

Mrs. Sharpless’s appendix, like the wicked, had long since ceased from troubling, and was now at rest in alcohol in a doctor’s office, having, previous to the change of location, given its original proprietress the one bad scare of her life. Therefore, she blinked, not being provided with a ready answer.

“The ancestors of man,” said Dr. Strong, “were endowed with sundry organs, like the appendix and the adenoids, which civilized man is better off without. And, as civilized man possesses a God-given intelligence to tell him how to get rid of them, he wisely does so when it’s necessary.”

“What have the adenoids to do with Betty’s deafness?” asked Mr. Clyde.

“Everything. They divert the air-currents, thicken the tubes connecting throat and ear, and interfere with the hearing. Don’t let that little deficiency in keenness of ear bother you, though. Most likely it will pass with the removal of the adenoids. Even if it shouldn’t, it is too slight to be a handicap. But I want the child to be repaired before any of the familiar and more serious adenoid difficulties are fixed on her for life.”

“Are there others?” asked Mrs. Clyde apprehensively.

“Oh, every imaginable kind. How could it be otherwise? Here’s the very first principle of life, the breath, being diverted from its proper course, in the mouth-breather; isn’t a general derangement of functions the inevitable result? The hearing is affected, as I’ve shown you already. The body doesn’t get its proper amount of oxygen, and the digestion suffers. The lungs draw their air-supply in the wrong way, and the lung capacity is diminished. The open mouth admits all kinds of dust particles which inflame the throat and make it hospitable to infection. By incorrect breathing the facial aspect of the mouth-breather is variously modified and always for the worse; since the soft facial bones of youth are altered by the continual striking of an air-current on the roof of the mouth, which is pushed upward, distorting the whole face.”

“None of our children are distorted. You won’t find a better-looking lot anywhere,” challenged Mrs. Sharpless, the grandmother’s pride up in arms.

“True. None of them has had overdeveloped adenoids, except Betty. The others all breathe through their noses. See how different their mouths are from Betty’s lifting upper lip—very fascinating now, but later—Well, I’ve gone so far as to prepare an object-lesson for you. Three extreme types of the mouth-breathers are here from school by my invitation to have some lemonade and cakes. They are outside now. When they come in, I want each of you to make an analysis of one of them, without their seeing it, of course. Talk with them about their work in school. You may get ideas from that. Mrs. Sharpless, you take the taller of the girls; Mrs. Clyde, you study the shorter. The boy goes to you, Mr. Clyde.”

The trio of visitors entered, somewhat mystified, but delighted to be the guests of their friend, Dr. Strong, who had a faculty of interesting children. So shrewdly did he divert and hold their attention that they concluded their visit and left without having suspected the scrutiny which they had undergone.

“Now, Mrs. Clyde,” said Dr. Strong, after the good-byes were said, “what about your girl?”

“Nothing in particular except that she’s mortally homely and doesn’t seem very bright.”

“Homely in what respect?”

“Well, hatchet-faced, to use a slang term.”

“It’s not a slang term any more; it’s a medical term to describe a typical result of mouth-breathing. The diversion of the breath destroys the even arch of the teeth, pushes the central teeth up, giving that squirrel-like expression that is so unpleasantly familiar, lengthens the mouth from the lower jaw’s hanging down, and sharpens the whole profile to an edge, and an ugly one. Adenoids!”

“My tall girl I thought at first was dull, but I found the poor thing was a little deaf,” said Grandma Sharpless. “She’s got a horrid skin; so sallow and rough and pimply. I don’t think her digestion is good. In fact, she said she had trouble with her stomach.”

“Naturally. Her teeth are all out of place from facial malformation caused by mouth-breathing. That means that she can’t properly chew her food. That means in turn that her digestion must suffer. That, again, means a bad complexion and a debilitated constitution. Adenoids! What’s your analysis, Mr. Clyde?”