Volume 2

The surgical works of John Hunter ... with notes / edited by James F. Palmer.

  • Hunter, John, 1728-1793.
Date:
1835-1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The surgical works of John Hunter ... with notes / edited by James F. Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    superior row of teeth, and to counteract the lower jaw; hut it has no motion itself upon the bones of the head and face. Of the Lower Jaw. As the lower jaw is extremely moveable, and its motion is indispen- sably necessary in all the various operations of the teeth, it requires to be more particularly described. It is much more simple in its form than the upper, having fewer processes, and these not so irregular. Its ante- rior circular part is placed directly under that of the upper jaw; but its other parts extend further backwards*. This jaw is at first composed of two distinct bonesf; but these, soon after birth, unite into one, at the middle of the chin. This union is called the symphysis of the jaw. Upon the upper edge of the body of the bone is placed the alveolar process, a good deal similar to that of the upper jaw. The alveolar process extends all round the upper part of the bone, from the coronoid process of one side to that of the other!. In both jaws they are everywhere relatively proportional to the teeth, being thicker behind, where the teeth are larger and more irregular, upon account of the more numerous fangs inserted into them. The teeth that are situated backwards in the upper jaw, have more fangs than those that correspond with them in the lower, and the sockets are accordingly more irregular. The alveolar process of the upper jaw is a section of a larger circle than that of the lower, especially when the teeth are in the sockets. This arises chiefly from the anterior teeth in the upper jaw being broader and flatter than those in the lower §. The posterior part of the bone on each side rises almost perpendicularly, and terminates above in two processes ||; the anterior of which is the highest, is thin and pointed, and is called the coronoid process ^. The anterior edge of this process forms a ridge, which goes obliquely down- ward and forward on the jaw, upon the outside of the posterior sockets**. To this process the temporal muscle is attached; and as it rises above the centre of motion, that muscle acts with nearly equal advantage in all the different situations of the jaw. The posterior process, which is made for a moveable articulation with the head, runs upward, and a little backward; is narrower, thicker, and shorter than the anterior; and terminates in an oblong rounded head, or condyle ft. whose longest axis is nearly transverse. The condyle is f PI. VI. f. 1, 4, & 6. I PI. I- f- 2. ;| PI. II. f. 2. e & d\ and PI. III. f. 2. e &/. ** pi. ii. f. 2, b. tt pi. in. f. 2. f. * PI. II. f. 1 & 2. § PI. II. f. 1. PI. III. e, e.