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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![or surgeon, but those which are peculiar to the teeth and their con- nexions belong properly to the dentist. It is not my present purpose to enumerate every disease capable of producing such symptoms as may lead us to suspect the teeth, for the jaws may be affected by almost every kind of disorder. I shall there- fore confine myself to the diseases of the teeth, gums, and alveolar processes; which parts, having a peculiar connexion, their diseases fall properly within the province of the dentist. I shall also purposely avoid entering into common surgery, so as not to lead the dentist beyond his depth, into matters of which (it is to be supposed) he has not acquired a competent knowledge. In order that the reader may perfectly understand what follows, it will be necessary for him previously to consider and comprehend the anatomy and uses of every part of a tooth, as explained in my Natural History of the Human Teeth, to which I shall be obliged frequently to refer. Without such previous study the dentist will often be at a loss to account for many of the diseases and symptoms mentioned here, and will retain many vulgar errors imbibed by conversing with ignorant people, or by reading books in which the anatomy and physiology of the teeth are treated without a sufficient knowledge of the subject. Whichever of the connected parts be originally diseased, the teeth are commonly the greatest sufferers. None of those parts can be dis- tempered without communicating to the teeth such morbid effects as tend to the destruction of thema. a [The object of the author in writing this work, as given in the introduction to the second part, was indeed worthy of himself. That the dentists of his day required such information as he professes to give them, nearly as much as those of the present, may be fairly inferred; but it also may be reasonably asked, how the unfortunate dentist who is supposed by our author not to have acquired a knowledge of common surgery, as “a matter beyond his depth”, is to understand the diseases “which are peculiar to the teeth and their connexions; as if abscess, ulceration, tumours, caries, necrosis, &c., are to be readily understood by the charlatan who knows nothing of the principles of common surgery, when they occur in the gums and alveolar processes; whilst, if they take place in other parts of the body, they fall within the province of the surgeon. Had Hunter endeavoured to rescue the surgical treatment of the teeth altogether from the hands of the mere mechanic, and urged the study of this not uninteresting portion of professional knowledge upon the notice of the scientific practitioner, he would have done more to raise it from its present degradation than it can ever be in the power of a less influential author to effect; and we should not now have had to deplore, in his own quaint but expressive words, that the dentist should be “at a loss to account for many of these diseases and symptoms,” and “retain many vulgar errors imbibed by conversing with ignorant people.”]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21996635_0002_0078.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
