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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![with on the front teeth, near the cutting edge; at others it extends nearly over half of the tooth, the remaining parts being perfect. When the roughness is near the edge, it often wears out in a few years, or at the age of maturity it may be filed out. In some, one, two, or three indented lines pass across the front of the teeth.* [The affection under consideration may result from the destruction of a portion of the praeformative membrane or some one or more of the enamel fibres, caused by disease of the general system, and some writers are of the opinion that it is wholly referable to the occurrence of eruptive diseases during the formation of the enamel. M. Duval has given to the disease the name of atrophy.] This defective formation of the enamel is usually confined to the incisores, cuspidati, and first permanent molares: it is rarely met with on the bicuspides, or second and third molares.—No certain reason can be assigned why the membrane secreting the enamel should so often deviate from its natural action. It can only be referred to some peculiarity of constitution, occasioning an irregu- lar action in the membranes of the pulps, during the first months; for this appearance is only met with on those teeth, the formation of which commences about the time of birth: and even upon them, in those parts only which are first formed. In a few months after, the membranes acquire a healthy action, and the teeth which are formed later, rarely have defective enamel. It is very remarkable that this circumstance often occurs in several children of the same family; indeed there is scarcely any part in which they resemble each other more, than in the appearance and arrangement of the teeth. I have however constantly observed that these kind of teeth are not so liable to decay, as those which](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21120559_0058.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)


