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.

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    front upper teeth. It will occasionally occur in many other places, such as the apex of a tooth, but where it commences the least frequently is on the inner or lingual surface of all teeth, except perhaps the upper incisors. The plan upon which the disease progresses is, by commencing upon the outer surface of a tooth, and gradually passing through to the base of the enamel, where it immediately increases on the surface of the dentine; it then, rapidly, in com- parison, extends both in circumference and depth, and proceeds until the whole structure becomes involved in decomposition. It is here desirable that we should clearly see in what is the immediate commencement of the disease. Over the surface of the enamel, that extremely thin tissue which is called cementum exists during the earlier years after the eruption of the tooth. This cementum, which is speedily removed by friction, &c., from the smooth and even surface of the enamel, is not brought under the same influences when folded in the deeper crevices of the organ {vide Par. 28), where it is not only present, but thicker than over the surface of the crown.* * “ In some cases,” Mr. Tomes says, “ the deep crevices are tilled with cementum; in others they have been occupied until the tooth has been cut, and then been filled with tartar, but more commonly they become the seat of caries.”—Tomes’s Manual, p. 275.