Volume 1

Descriptive catalogue of the pathological specimens contained in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

  • Royal College of Surgeons of England. Museum.
Date:
1846-9
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Descriptive catalogue of the pathological specimens contained in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    48. The other section of the same head and tooth. Hunterian. 49. A section of the comb of a cock into which a human tooth was similarly trans- planted. The surface of the fang of the tooth is in contact, but not evi- dently united, with the comb. A pale fleshy growth extends from the comb into the pulp-cavity, but it has not, as in the last preparation, the appearance of a tooth-pulp, neither is its vascularity evident. Hunterian. 50. The other section of the same comb and tooth. There is here a narrow empty space between the surface of the tooth and the adjacent substance of the comb. Hunterian. I took a sound tooth from a person's head; then made a pretty deep wound with a lancet into the thick part of a cock's comb, and pressed the fang of the tooth into this wound, and fastened it with threads passed through other parts of the comb. The cock was killed some months after, and I injected the head with a very minute injec- tion ; tiie comb was then taken off and put into a weak acid, and the tooth being softened by this means, I slit the comb and tooth into two halves, in the long direction of the tooth. I found the vessels of the tooth well injected, and also observed that the external surface of the tooth adhei'ed everywhere to the comb by vessels, similar to the union of a tooth with the gum and sockets.—Hunter; On the Teeth: Works, vol. ii. p. 104. In a note to the above passage Mr. Hunter says:— I may here just remark, that this experiment is not generally attended with suc- cess. I succeeded but once out of a great number of trials, In this account Mr. Hunter plainly alludes to the preparations marked 49 and 50, in which the comb has been separated from the head ; but though he says he was only once successful in this experiment, it is certain that his success was much less in this case to which he alludes than in that of which the result is preserved in Nos. 47 and 48; for in them the union of the tooth and comb is perfect. Numerous preparations of transplanted teeth are preserved in the Series of Diseases of the Teeth [No. 1023 to 1026] ; and other remarks by Mr. Hunter on the same subject are connected with the descriptions of them. 51. The head of a cock, dried. Two small spurs were transplanted into its comb, and have become firmly fixed in it. Hunterian. 52. The head of a cock, dried. A spur transplanted into the comb of the cock has grown into a kind of horn, which is about three-fourths of an