Treatment and prevention of decay of the teeth / by Robert Arthur.

Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Treatment and prevention of decay of the teeth / by Robert Arthur. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    ferred to, b. It will also be seen that the tubes, in their normal condition, run fully up to the enamel on each side of the part affected by decay, c. It is probable that this change always occurs when decay attacks the dentine, if the latter is well formed. In such cases, even where the conditions are favorable to the production of decay, its pro- gress is very slow. Sometimes it is quite evident that decay has slowly progressed during the greater part of a lifetime without destroying the affected teeth. In many cases it is completely arrested. But when the structure of the teeth is imperfect, and the secretions of the mouth are very corrosive, as is so common at the present day, this effort of nature proves, except where circum- stances favor the result, ineffectual, even to mate- rially retard its progress. The action referred to is curiously exemplified in the first permanent molar teeth. When they first attain to their full size, apparently, the roots are not completed, and the pulps are furnished with a large quantity of blood destined for this purpose. The formative power is at that time of life veiy active. The formation of the dentine, on the interior of the roots, is progressing rapidly, and under the influence of irritation of any kind, one of the natural functions of the pulp or nerve, that of depositing the particles of lime, of which the hard part of the teeth is composed, is stimu- lated. It not unfrequently happens that when