The menageries : quadrupeds, described and drawn from living subjects.

Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The menageries : quadrupeds, described and drawn from living subjects. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    84/412 (page 74)
    cavity by the newly deposited layers of ivory, while no opening; will exist between it and the surface to account for its entrance. If it have only sufficient force to enter, it will probably sink, by its own weight, between the pulp and tooth, until it rests at the bottom of the cavity. It there becomes surrounded by new layers of ivory; and as the tusk is gradually worn awny, and supplied by new depositions, it will soon be found in the centre of the solid part of the tooth. Lastly, a foreign body may enter the tusk from above, as the plate of bone which forms its socket is thin; and if this descends to the lower part of the cavity, it may become imbedded by the subse- quent formations of ivory. This must have happened in a case where a spear-head was found in an elephant’s tooth. The long axis of the foreign body corresponded to that of the cavity. No opening for its admission could be discovered ; and it is very clear that no human strength could drive such a body through the side of a tusk*.” In the section of the elephant’s head, at p. 47, e exhibits the alveole of the tusk, andy' its cavity opened, to shew the space which the pulp occupies. The elephant has milk-tusks which he sheds be- tween the first and second year, when not two inches in length. In a month or two after this process the permanent tusks cut the gum. These second tusks remain during the life of the animal; they are never again shed. The tusks of the Indian female are very small in comparison with those of the male; but they are used as weapons of defence against other ele- phants. The tusks of the male vary in size according to the species and the age of the animal. Those of the Indian elephant of Bengal rarely exceed seventy * Phil.Trans. 1801; quotedin Lawrence's and Coulson’s trans* 'ation of Blumenbach.