A Remarkable Deformity of the Teeth among the Inhabitants of the Admiralty Isles 1

Abstract

THE Russian traveller, M. Miklucho-Maclay, in the course of recent travel in Melanesia, has noticed among the natives of the Admiralty and Hermit Isles a remarkable peculiarity in the teeth? the upper incisors projecting “shovel like,” almost horizontally, and to such a degree as to extend even beyond the lips when the mouth is closed. The breadth, moreover, of one of these teeth is at times so great as to equal its visible length; being in the specimen figured as much as 19 millimetres to 16 mm, of length, measured, of course, from the edge of the jaws, not from the extremity of its fang. As all the teeth have a blackish polish, due to the prevailing habit of betel-chewing, the mouth presents a somewhat ghastly appearance. M. Miklucho-Maclay has nowhere else met with a similar deformity of. the teeth, but heard of such, when on the peninsula of Malacca, the race in which it occurs being called “orang-gargassi.”