The anatomy, physiology, and diseases of the teeth / by Thomas Bell.

  • Bell, Thomas, 1792-1880.
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anatomy, physiology, and diseases of the teeth / by Thomas Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    susceptible of the dye ; we may readily suppose that the teeth are not vascular, because they are not sus- ceptible of it after being once formed. But we shall carry this still farther ; if you feed a pig with mad- der for some time, and then leave it off for a consider- able time before you kill the animal, you will find the above appearance still subsisting, with this ad- dition, that all the parts of the teeth which were formed, after leaving off feeding with madder, will be white. Here then in some teeth we shall have white, then red, and then white again; and so we shall have the red and the white colours alternately through the whole tooth. This experiment shews, that the tooth once tinged does not lose its colour; now as all other bones that have been once tinged lose their colour in time, when the animal leaves off feeding with madder, (though very slowly,) and as that dye must be taken into the constitution by the absorbents, it would seem that the teeth are without absorbents as well as other vessels. As it is not stated how long the latter experiments were continued, it would be difficult to say how far we may depend upon the result as affording a ground for so decided a conclusion; but as it is confessed that even in the bones, absorption of the colouring matter proceeds but slowly, I should hesitate very much to grant its correctness, unless the details were more distinctly stated ; particularly when the ex- tremely dense structure of the teeth is taken into consideration, which may naturally be expected to retard the absorption of the colouring matter, and to which, in short, may be referred all those apparently anomalous results, whether relating to circulation or