The diseases of the human teeth : their natural history and structure : with the mode of applying artificial teeth, etc., etc. / by Joseph Fox and Chapin A. Harris ; with two hundred and fifty illustrations.
- Joseph Fox
- Date:
- 1855
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The diseases of the human teeth : their natural history and structure : with the mode of applying artificial teeth, etc., etc. / by Joseph Fox and Chapin A. Harris ; with two hundred and fifty illustrations. 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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![without injury to the progress which is going on under- neath. The ossification of the teeth begins to take place very- early; it is first visible upon the tips of the incisores. In a foetus of about five or six months, ossification has com- menced upon the pulps of the incisores and cuspidati; and on the points of the molares; this gradually advances and extends itself, over the pulp, down to the neck of the tooth, from the cutting edges or highest points, where it had first commenced. At the time of birth, the bodies of ten teeth are distinct- ly formed in each jaw; these are the teeth designed to serve during the years of childhood, and are commonly called the temporary, shedding, or milk teeth.* These temporary teeth, which constitute the first set, are twenty in number, and are divided into three classes, incisores, cuspidati and molares. In each jaw there are four incisores, two cuspidati, and four molares, and the teeth on one side of the mouth correspond in figure with those of the other, so that they are situated in pairs. Besides these twenty teeth, there are in a very early stage of their formation, the rudiments of some other teeth, which are to form part of the permanent or adult set.f [At birth, the jaws contain the rudiments of fifty-two teeth—twenty temporary and thirty-two permanent.] After birth, as the ossification goes on, the teeth be- come too long to be contained within the alveolar cavity, they therefore begin to make pressure upon those parts which cover them; this produces the process of absorp- tion, which proceeds with the enlargement of the tooth, first removing the membranes which enveloped the teeth, and afterwards the thick gum which covered them, this * Plate II. Fig. 1. t Plate II. Fig. 1. a. b.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21120559_0031.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
