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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    which are fully described and conducted upon scientific methods, including histological examination of the affected tissues by the microscope. Except for curiosity, and to note the gradual evolution of full knowledge, there is little use nowadays in discussing the crude guessings of ancient and early writers. Regarded in the light of modern science, the opinions of the early dental pathologists are not more absurd than those of workers in other departments. It was first necessary, before exact knowledge of disease could be obtained, that exact knowledge of the structure of the tissues in health should be gained; and this was impossible before the introduction of the microscope, and the per- fection of methods of histological investigation. It was natural for old writers, ignorant of the real structure of enamel and dentine, to look upon these tissues as more highly organized than we now know them to be; to speak of their ‘ vitality,’ to suppose that they underwent constant nutritive changes, to identify the phenomena which disease made visible in the tissues with similar effects in more highly organized parts, and to classify these appearances as atrophy, gangrene, and inflammation—conditions to which they, perhaps, bore a superficial resemblance. I must, before quoting authorities, premise that I shall subsequently enter more fully into the question of the pre- disposing causes of caries—so often alluded to by authors ; and that I shall also in due course examine more thoroughly the statement that caries, although, perhaps, excited by external agencies, yet does not consist of mere unresisted disintegration of enamel and dentine, but is really a disease attended by vital reaction in the affected tissues, by in- flammation, or at least some true pathological phenomena. All the authorities I shall quote start from the foundation of anatomical facts which I have given; and it cannot be
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