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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    dentine in cross section looks as though built up of multi- tudes of tobacco-pipe stems. The zone of altered dentine surrounding the cavity where caries is advancing, they demonstrate is present in caries of dead teeth, and they show that this appearance, which was once thought to indicate pathological action, is due merely to passive de- composition of the tissues. Inasmuch as no characteristic appearances can be found to distinguish caries occurring in living from that in dead teeth refixed in the mouth as artificial substitutes, the hypothesis of vital action in any way modifying the disease must be abandoned in toto, and * dental caries cannot, strictly speaking, be said to have any “ pathology.” ’ Messrs. Tomes regard as the main predisposing cause of caries structural imperfections in the tissues (such as I shall fully describe later); and they recognise that the physical signs visible at the onset of the disease vary mainly in consequence of the disintegration commencing sometimes on an unbroken surface, sometimes on a surface the seat of congenital defect, as, for example, on a patch of porous enamel, or in a fissure. The other great predisposing cause is vitiation of the secretions of the mouth. The appearances visible to microscopical examination during the progress of the disease, Messrs. Tomes regard as governed by the physical characters of the tissues. For instance, in the enamel the central portion of the fibres is the first to undergo decomposition. In the dentine they consider that, as a rule, the connecting material (the matrix) is the first, the walls of the tubes (the fibrous element of the tissue) the last to undergo disintegration. Professor Wedl’s observations agree substantially with the views of Messrs. Tomes. He classes caries under the heading ‘ Anomalies of the Secretions,’ considering the