The pathology of dental caries / by C. Spence Bate.

  • Bate, C. Spence.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pathology of dental caries / by C. Spence Bate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    34/100 (page 30)
    defective structure tlian enamel, and generally improves in character as it approximates the pulp, a circumstance that may be attributed to its dif- ferent plan of development. In the dentinal pulp, as in that of the enamel, the power of de- velopment must diminish in force as the structure approximates completion; but there is this im- portant distinction, that whereas the area of the enamel increases, that of the dentine diminishes with the progress of development. The conse- quence is that the effort of the latter is less taxed when it is least able to fulfil the condition. 40. We occasionally see perforations and defec- tively developed tubuli in dentine, but they are so exceptional that they can have but little influence in the pathology of dental caries. 41. jRasclilcow’s Membrane.—There is one tissue of little structural appearance in a tooth, but of great importance in its pathological history, that has not been sufficiently studied by writers on the subject. I allude to the membrane that separates the enamel from the dentine. It will be found to be an invariable rule, that in the best developed organs the dentinal tubes never pass beyond this intermediate membrane; but in those teeth where we find defective tissues, the tubuli of the dentine frequently either pass through or are in connection with interspaces in the enamel. Under this latter circumstance the membrane must be considerably impoverished