The palatal rugæ in man / by Harrison Allen.

  • Allen, Harrison, 1841-1897.
Date:
[1888]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The palatal rugæ in man / by Harrison Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    19/20 (page 271)
    and teeth take^n in plaster with great care.1 The material therefore is not of the average. It is based upon the hard palate of individ- uals known to have some disease associated with disturbed states of secretion of the nasal chambers. In order that the study should have a more extended application it was thought to be desirable before any exact clinical conclusion could be drawn that a study of similar extent be based on material known to be derived from entirely healthy individuals. To make such examinations I visited the State Eastern Peniten- tiary in this city and by the courtesy of Dr. W. D. Robinson, the physician of the Institution, was enabled to stuby the mouths and nasal chambers of the inmates. In this way ninety examinations were recorded. In no instance was hyperostosis present in the form spoken of in the foregoing pages. Nor was a single case of hyperostosis of the roof of the mouth back of the region of the rugae seen. In a word no form of ruga? was detected which was broken by the descent of the median structures. In twenty-two examples the raphe1 was sufficiently prominent to form a slight fullness which could be felt by the finger. The re- maining fifty-eight examples were perfectly smooth. The rugae were very commouly of the form exhibited in Figs. 1 or 2 with a disposition for the folds to be concrescent at their outer ends. The examples of the left sutural ruga? deflected along the line of the raphe were but six in number; moderate degree of asymmetry of the sides of the roof in seven; concresence of the right sutural and post-sutural as to form a fork-like figure in but three. It is evident that the variations of the arrangement of the rugae were within a much narrower range than in the ninety cases from subjects from other sources. The roof of the mouth presented no narrowing of the vault with compression as seen in Fig. 8, and no flat wide palate as seen in Fig. 9. Thus the extremes of variation—viz., of the high narrrow vault and the low, wide vault were absent. But one instance of a moderately compressed vault was seen and in this example the pre-maxillae were not thrown forward. 1 I desire in this connection to acknowledge my indebtedness to many of my friends especially to Dr. L. Ashley Faught, Dr. E. C. Kirk and Dr. J. M. McGrath. Dr. J. W. White and Dr. W. Storer How of the S. S. White Dental Mfg. Co,, also greatly aided me in the investigation.