Dental caries; and, The prevention of dental caries.

  • Sewill, Henry
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dental caries; and, The prevention of dental caries. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    too often insisted upon that these facts, if not alone enough to prove the truth of the view of caries which I am attempt- ing to expound, are, at least, enough alone to prove the absurdity of other hypotheses to which I have referred, but which, nevertheless, I shall, before I finish, fully examine and refute. Much of this epitome and much of what I shall have to say throughout, must, I fear, necessarily con- sist of reiteration of what I have previously written on the subject, and may sound to some readers like a thrice-told tale; but I wish my argument, if concise, to be complete; and, I repeat, I write for the student, rather than for those who are already masters of the subject. Sir John and Mr. C. S. Tomes’ research demonstrates that caries is an effect of external causes, in which so-called ‘vital’ forces play no part; that it is to a great extent due to the solvent action of acids which have been generated by fermentation going on in the mouth, the buccal mucus probably having no small share in the matter; and when once the disintegrating process is established at some con- genitally defective point, the accumulation of food and secretions in the cavity intensifies the mischief by furnishing fresh supplies of acid. The presence of globular masses of calcareous salts, which are sometimes found in the dentinal tubes near a carious cavity, and which are relied upon by some writers as evidence of pathological action, they regard as probably depositions from solutions of salts, and not the results of such action ; and they maintain that even if it were conclusively shown that dentinal fibrils became ob- literated by calcification, this would not be absolute proof of vital action ; for they point out that albumen, even when out of the body, is able to form with calcareous salts com- binations having a definite structure. They describe a peculiar appearance at one stage of decay, in which the