The teeth a test of age, considered with reference to the factory children. Addressed to the members of both Houses of Parliament / by Edwin Saunders.

Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The teeth a test of age, considered with reference to the factory children. Addressed to the members of both Houses of Parliament / by Edwin Saunders. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    bility; and, therefore, should it afford no greater accuracy or certainty than the tests hitherto in use, it would demand consideration and attention, and must be regarded, on this account, as the most valuable criterion which has yet been offered. It can scarcely be supposed that, by any effort of misdirected ingenuity, the appearances of maturity in the mouth, and its appendages, can by any artifice be simulated. The development and growth of the teeth admit neither of retardation nor accele^ ration to any perceivable extent at least, by any artificial means ; and their general forms and cha- racters are so well defined, that all attempts at deception in any other way are out of the question. It may be urged, that deceptions of this kind are not unfrequently perpetrated upon the teeth of the horse, and that the appearances of another age are simulated almost beyond the j)Ower of detection. This, however, is easily explained. It is true that, in both cases, it is the succession of the second set of teeth (which, in all animals, appear in pairs at regular intervals) which constitutes the test; but as this process is completed at a comparatively early period of the animal's life, an additional circum- stance has been taken advantage of, as affording the means of ascertaining the age after the last of the second set of teeth has made its appearance. This arises from the form of the tooth, which pre- sents the appearance of an oval excavation extend- 0
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