The Mouth (Oral Cavity)
When I was in my first year of dental school 30 years ago, one of the most interesting courses was gross anatomy. Four of us were assigned a cadaver, and for the next six months meticulously dissected it from head to toe. Every nerve, artery, blood vessel and organ was isolated, studied, and re-studied. Of course, our ultimate concentration was on the head and oral cavity, but it was important to understand the relationship between the individual components and how they functioned successfully together.

Teeth Are Not Just For Chewing
The ability to articulate sounds and speak legibly depends upon the interplay between the tongue, the teeth, and the adjacent soft tissues and muscles. Sounds are produced and manipulated by air flow patterns around a healthy dentition. Have you ever heard a whistling sound coming from someone who wears badly-constructed dentures? This and other speech problems develop when degenerative changes occur in the oral cavity. Romantics understand what may be the most important function of a healthy mouth. As an aesthetic and erogenous lure, a clean and healthy mouth is an obvious sexual attraction.

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