Researches on the developement, structure and diseases of the teeth. / by Alexander Nasmyth.

  • Nasmyth, Alexander, 1789-1849
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches on the developement, structure and diseases of the teeth. / by Alexander Nasmyth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    46/224 (page 24)
    HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. fill; and in liis lectures at Guy’s Hospital lie laid much valuable information and many excellent rules of prac- tice before the students of his time. The opinion he en- tertained of his great predecessor, Mr. Hunter, is thus < expressed :—“ Mr. Hunter’s publication on the teeth was the first scientific book ever published upon this sub- ject ; and as an anatomical work must ever enjoy great celebrity ; but not having pi'actically devoted much of his attention to the operations upon the teeth, there can be no reflection upon Mr, Hunter’s merit in stating, that in many essential points he was wholly but unavoid- ably deficient.”* Again (at p. 18) he states that “ into Mr, Hunter’s treatise, for want of closer attention, many inaccuracies have been suffered to creep.” The developement of the teeth is very accurately de- scribed by this author, who, in his description of the suc- cessive ap23earance of the different teeth, anticipates the remark regarding the more early developement of the first small grinder, which more than twenty years after- wards was claimed as original by M. Serres, It ought to be observed, however, that from the cursory manner in which Fox mentions this fact, the subject hardly ob- tains its due importance. Serres, I have no doubt, was totally ignorant of the existence of Mr. Fox’s work, or he must have known that the excellent plates in it present a correct delineation of this jihenomenon. Fox considers that the teeth differ in their formation from bones only in having a covering of enamel, and in being more dense, and he is a strenuous advocate of the vascularity of the teeth. He notices the intimate union of the capsule to the gums, and also the two layers of which the capsule is coiu])osed, both of which he states Prcliicc, p. ix. Tliird Edit.