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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![styles, 'the enamel membrane.' The inner surface of this membrane, he says, 'consists of hexangular, nearly uniform corpuscules, visible only through a magnifying glass, towards the centre of each of which, is a round eminence. These corpuscules are nothing more than the ends of short fibres, of which the whole membrane is composed, and which being pressed together, assume freely the hexangular form.' They are disposed in regu- lar series, and correspond with the arrangement of the fibres of the enamel. These corpuscules, he regards as secretory ducts, whose peculiar office is to secrete the enamel fibres which correspond to them. This process begins immediately after the commencement of the ossification of the pulp of the tooth, and while it is going on, Raschkow thinks an organic lymph is secreted from the parenchyma of the enamel membrane, which diffuses itself between the fibres, rendering the whole substance soft, but which afterwards, by means of a kind of chemico-organic process, combines with the earthy substances, and forms the animal base of the enamel. The membrane covering the pulp of the tooth, he calls the praeformative, and this, no doubt, as has been before intimated, constitutes the bond of union between the enamel and bone of the tooth. Little is known with regard to the manner of the for- mation of the cementum, or fourth substance entering into the composition of the tooth. Raschkow thinks that it may be produced by the remains of the enamel pulp. I am of the opinion, however, that it is secreted by the dental periosteum, and the more so, as it cannot be de- tected on the crowns of the human teeth.] While some eminent physiologists have contended, that the teeth, when they have attained their full growth,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21120559_0056.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
