Treatise on the natural history and diseases of the human teeth : explaining their structure, use, formation, growth, and diseases, in two parts / by John Hunter ; with notes by Thomas Bell.

  • John Hunter
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Treatise on the natural history and diseases of the human teeth : explaining their structure, use, formation, growth, and diseases, in two parts / by John Hunter ; with notes by Thomas Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    which was smooth in the highest degree. Some of the other teeth in the same jaw had begun to decay in a similar manner; also the teeth in the lower jaw were become diseased. I saw a case very lately where the four incisors of the upper jaw had lost their enamel entirely on their anterior surfaces, and there was scarcely a tooth in the mouth which had not the ap- pearance of having had a file applied across it close to the gum. Those whom I have known have not been able to attribute this disease to any cause ; none of them had ever done anything par- ticular to the teeth, nor was there in appearance anything particular in the constitution which could give rise to such a disease. Init lie first of these cases the person was about forty ; in the last about twenty years of age. . From its attacking certain teeth rather than others in the same head, and a particular part of the tooth, I suspect it to be an origi- nal disease of the tooth itself, and not to depend on accident, way of life, constitution, or any particular management of the teeth. § 3. The Swelling of the Fang. Another disease of the teeth is a swelling of the fang, which most probablv arises from inflammation, while the body continues sound, and is of that kind which in any other bone would be called a spina ventosa.f It gives considerable pain, and nothing can be seen cxternallv» The pain may either be in the tooth itself or the alveolar process, as it is obliged to give way to the increase of the fang. As a swelling of this kind does not tend to the suppurative inflammation, and as I have not been able to distinguish its symp- toms from those of the nervous tooth-ache, it becomes a matter ol some difficulty to the operator ; for the only cure yet known is the extraction of the tooth, which has been often neglected on a suppo- sition that the pain has been nervous. u„™mP These diseases of the teeth, arising from inflammation, become often the cause of the diseases in the alveolar processes and gums, which I shall proceed to describe.^ * ri have elsewhere mentioned a very curious case of an affection somewhat analogous to that here described. It consisted of the gradual trancaUon of the edaesV the front teeth, both of the upper and lower jaw, extending back to he bicusnides The exposed surface was perfectly smooth and polished, and the loss of substance extended so far that the cavities of the teeth must have been opened/but that they had become filled with a new solid bony substance, so transparent that it was only by touching it that its presence was ascertained As the teeth never could have come in contact at the truncated part, and as no mecha- nical means had ever been used by which it could have been occasioned, the cause of this singular affection remains wholly unknown.] t [Natural History of the Teeth, p. 23.] I rThe affection here described is nothing more than a deposit of bony matter around the. fang, produced, doubtless, by inflammation of the periosteum The new bone ie aL? yellowerand less opaque than the original structure Hunte hw alluded hereto the occurrence of nervous pains, produced by these ease> t appears probable that the pressure of the new bone upon the nerves of the penos-
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