Dental caries; and, The prevention of dental caries.

  • Sewill, Henry
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dental caries; and, The prevention of dental caries. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    solving the earthy constituents in acid; and remains as a tough felt, even after boiling in strong muriatic acid. No cellular or protoplasmic elements are discoverable in this fibrous structure. Dentine is in relation with the vascular pulp which it encloses, but a circumstance which is seldom mentioned should be remembered, that the vessels are not in intimate contact with the dentine—a layer of odontoblast cells, the membrana eboris, intervening. The dental pulp consists of vessels and nerve-fibres with numerous cells and delicate connective-tissue, and it contains no absorbents, or at least none have been demonstrated in its structure. A consideration of the anatomy of enamel and dentine— unique in the body—would, it might be supposed, be alone enough to show that they are incapable of anything like pathological action, that such action in enamel is inconceiv- able, and in dentine hardly possible. Wedl is the only authority with whom I am acquainted who emphasizes this fact, and who rightly, in my opinion, dismisses many false speculations with the simple statement that on anatomical grounds they are impossible. I do not know whether we all ought to disregard disputers who seem to believe in various occult forces and phenomena, irreconcilable with fundamental truths of anatomy and physiology. I think a great authority like Wedl may wrell disregard them, but I fancy it may be. useful to expose them in the columns of a periodical publication. Pathology must have its basis on anatomy and physiology; and one might think a truth need not be stated so obvious as that no apparent pathological phenomenon incompatible with indisputable facts of these sciences can be accepted. In presence of our exact knowledge of the structure of the teeth, some recent writers and speakers have glibly talked of