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 to the dentist, but so far from being the case, doctors find it extremely difficult to induce their patients to part with this unsightly, evil-smelling, and dangerous decayed tooth.

The Throat.—­Some throat affections, such as diphtheria and quinsy, are well known and justly dreaded; and although many a child’s life has been sacrificed to the slowness of its guardians to procure medical advice and the health-restoring antitoxin, yet on the whole the public conscience is awake to this duty.  Far otherwise is it with chronic diseases of the tonsils:  they may be riddled with small cysts, they may be constantly in a condition of subacute inflammation dependent on a septic condition, but no notice is taken except when chill, constipation, or a general run-down state of health aggravates the chronic into a temporary acute trouble.  And yet it is perhaps not going too far to say that for one young girl who is killed or invalided rapidly by diphtheria there are hundreds who are condemned to a quasi-invalid life owing to this persistent supply of poison to the system.