A critical inquiry into a few facts connected with the teeth / by George Waite.

  • Waite, George Derby, 1804-1880.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A critical inquiry into a few facts connected with the teeth / by George Waite. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    mouths of people of every nation, and of every class of society we see it; many of these never use tooth brushes ; the absorp- tion commences when it is to be expected, after middle age, or after the exhibition of medicines which rouse the absorbents into action. If we examine the lower jaws of indentulous indi- viduals, we see the sockets of the teeth completely removed, the depth of the bone is considerably shortened, the chin pro- jects, and a deposition of osseous matter has been going on in the bottom of the sockets, so that they are quite unperceived. If the gums were worn down by the action of the brush, the tips of the sockets would be left protruding. For the last ten years of my life, I have perhaps brushed my teeth and gums harder than any person in England. I may say that I have endeavored to rub them away, but in vain; I have sometimes gone so far as to make them sore, but the result I find is this, that the soreness heals in an almost in- credible manner, that the next morning there is a somewhat cartilaginous deposit on them, exuded from the openings of vessels on their surface, sometimes perceptible to the naked eye, and that when healed there is an increase rather than a decrease. The structure of the gums is certainly parenchymatous, and from the vessels principally composing it, other minor ones pass, which open on their surface by minute orifices. This renders a free circulation through them particularly necessary, for the small vessels become easily choked up, and the blood remains coagulated in them. Nothing is more adapted to giving them strength and a healthy appearance than repeated friction. I see no justifiable reason for speaking against it, but my sincere wish is that every doctrine which can tend to the benefit of mankind may be promulgated. If those who assert that the gums are rubbed away by the brush, instead of receding as the socket absorbs, can give me any physiological reason why it should be so, I will then be tenacious about recommending friction to them ; at the same time I trust that I have scientific principles and common sense to hold me out; and am embol- dened by an additional reason, viz. that these principles were at an early age held out to me by my late father.