An introductory lecture on dental surgery : delivered at the Metropolitan School of Dental Science, Wednesday, October 12, 1859 / by Robert T. Hulme.

  • Hulme, Robert Thomas
Date:
1860
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introductory lecture on dental surgery : delivered at the Metropolitan School of Dental Science, Wednesday, October 12, 1859 / by Robert T. Hulme. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    IS temporary molaris and the coronoid procesB; and this lengthened part of the jaw is destined to be the situation of the permanent molares. (1) Delabarre wonders what could have induced several modern writers to deny that the anterior part of the jaw increases. (2) Mr Bell states that he has repeatedly compared the arch of the jaw at seven years of age with the same jaw at twelve or fourteen, and he has no hesitation in saying that the anterior permanent occupy a somewhat larger arch than the temporary one which preceded them had done, and that the view taken by Hunter and Fox is incorrect, though not to the extent which Dr Blake and M. Delabarre have sup- posed. (3) M. Oudet (4), who seems to have examined this question more systematically and more carefully than any of his predecessors, having taken casts of the mouths of some twenty children at three years of age, and repeated the operation upon them at diffe- rent intervals up to six years and a half, declares that there was no change in the length of the arch of the jaw, or in the relation of the teeth to each other during that period. Lastly, Mr Tomes, in his Lectures on Dental Surgery (p. 118), contents himself with repeat- ing the statement of Hunter, but does not adduce a ay additional evi- dence upon the point in question. These examples might be greatly multiplied, but suflaeient has been brought forward to justify what I have said. We are all aware that medicine can never become an exact scienc'e; the machinery of the human body is too delicate and too complex, the external influences to which it is exposed are too various and too numerous to allow so desirable an end to be accomplished. Never- theless, we may in some instances approximate to something like exactness. This can only be done by bringing the science of numbers to bear upon the subject; w^hen we can do this we are at least able to assert that, in a given number of cases, a certain proportion of them will run such and such a course, and have a given termination. This application has already been made in some instances, and we are in possession of a limited series of dental statistics. Now, it is precisely upon those points which have been brought under the influence of numbers that we can speak most confidently. If, for instance, we were asked which are the teeth belonging to the second set that are (1) 'Opus cit.,' p. 47. (2) Delabarre, ' Traite de la Seconde Dentition,' p. 96. Paris, 1819. Qi) ' Opus cit.,' p. 83.
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