Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The works of John Hunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![Of Dentition. Teeth, at their first formation, and for some time while growing, are completely inclosed within the sockets and gums*, and in their growth they act upon the inclosing parts in some degree as extraneous bodies; for while the operation of growth is going on in them, another opera- tion is produced, which is a decay of that part of the gum and socket that covers the tooth, and which becomes the cause of the very dis- agreeable and even dangerous symptoms which attend this process. As the teeth advance in size, they are in the same proportion pressing against these sockets or gums, from whence inflammation and ulcera- tion are produced. That ulceration which takes place in dentition is one of the species which seldom or never produces suppuration: however, in some few cases I have found the gums ulcerated, and the body of the tooth sur- rounded with matter; but I believe this seldom happens till the tooth is near cutting the skin of the gums. As this is a disease of an early age, and indeed almost begins with life, its symptoms are more diffused, more general, and more uncertain at such an early period than those of any disorder of full-grown people, putting on the appearance of a great variety of maladies; but these sym- ptoms become less various and less hazardous as the child advances in years, so that the double teeth of the child, and still more so the second set of teeth, or those of the adult, are usually cut without producing much disturbance. These symptoms are so various in different children, and often in the same child, that it is difficult to conceive them to be from the same ori- gin, and the varieties are such as seem to be beyond our knowledge. They produce both local and constitutional complaints, with local sympathy. The local symptoms we may suppose to be attended with pain, which appears to be expressed by the child when he is restless, uneasy, rubs his gums, and puts every tiling into his mouth. There is gene- * Natural History, pp. 33 and 34, PI. VIII. f. 15. purpose are these vessels formed, what object can possibly be fulfilled by the existence of a vascular pulp in the internal cavity, and a vascular periosteum covering the ex- ternal surface,—so obviously vascular that it was well injected from the vessels of a cock’s comb, into which it had been transplanted,—unless they are intended to nourish the bony substance of which the tooth consists, and to form the medium of its connexion with the general system?]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21996635_0002_0125.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
