Volume 2

The works of John Hunter.

Date:
1837
Catalogue details

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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    to a constant pressure from the rising teeth against the fangs or sockets of the first set, but it is not so; for the new alveoli rise with the new teeth, and the old alveoli decay in proportion as the fangs of the old teeth decay, and when the first set falls out, the succeeding teeth are so far from having destroyed, by their pressure, the parts against which they might be supposed to push, that they are still inclosed and co- vered by a complete bony socket. From this we see that the change is not produced by a mechanical pressure, but is a particular process in the animal ceconomy. I have seen two or three jaws where the second temporary grinders were shedding in the common way, without any tooth underneath; and in one jaw, where both the grinders were shedding, I met with the same circumstance. A remarkable instance of this sort occurred to me in a lady who de- sired me to look at a loose tooth, which I found was the last temporary tooth not yet shed. I desired that it might be drawn out, and told her it was of no use and could not by any art be fixed, as it was one of the teeth that is naturally shed, and that another might come in its place : however, she was disappointed. These cases prove evidently, that in shedding, the first teeth are not pushed out by the second set, but that they grow loose and fall out of their own accord. That the succeeding teeth have some influence on the shedding of the temporary set is proved by those very cases ; since in one of the first mentioned the person was above twenty years of age, and in the other the lady was thirty; and it is reasonable to believe, that the shedding of these teeth was so late in those instances from the want of the influence, whatever it is, of the new teeth. When the in- cisores and cuspidati of the new set are a little advanced, but long be- fore they appear through their bony sockets, there are small holes leading to them on the inside, or behind the temporary sockets and teeth ; and these holes grow larger and larger, till at last the body of the tooth passes quite through them3. Of the Groivth of the Two Jaws. As a knowledge of the manner in which the two jaws grow will lead a [In the last paragraph of the section is an additional instance of the total misunder- standing of the relation of the permanent to the temporary teeth during their formation. The holes which have been described in a former note, as the foramina through which the communicating cord passes from the permanent rudiment to the neck of the tempo- rary tooth are here erroneously stated to be the commencement of the openings through which the permanent teeth pass in their subsequent progress. See PI. VIII. f. 9,10,11,12.]
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