Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Souvenir. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
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![I think these illustrations sufficient to show you that this bio- plasson doctrine will not bear the test of physiological scrutiny. No matter what claims may be made as to seeing this reticulum connecting the cells, the interpretation placed upon it is wrong, and all theories based upon it topple and fall to the ground. Now, I want to talk of some other things,—this matter of the dentinal fibrils passing out between the odontoblasts. [Drawing on the blackboard, reproducing a sketch made by a former speaker of the dentinal fibrils passing from the pulp into the dentine, and passing between the odontoblasts, instead of arising from them.] You see these lines passing out between the odontoblasts with little offshoots here. Let me say that it required a hundred years of ob- servation and discussion before a man arose who observed suf- ficiently well to declare that caries did not begin within the den- tine. Should we fall out with a man because he is mistaken ? No. We should hope that he will look further. This is the result of faulty observation. I have certainly^.done enough of this class of dissecting to have some right to speak. I had stained sections of teeth with chloride of gold, and studied them while my friend here was still in Europe making illustrations from sections cut from the frozen cadaver,—which, I must say, was a beautiful work, and I wish he had done more of it. And when this reticulum business was first introduced to the American Dental Association I had some chloride of gold stainings there to show. I remember that Dr. McQuillen made a speech about it at the time, and my brother here on my right and I got into a row about it. Dr. Atkinson. I was there. Dr. Black. And we have been good friends ever since. I know just how my brother got into this difficulty with the dentinal fibrils. His picture is made from a diagonal section, and it deceived him. He saw the things he describes, but he did not get the true view of tbem. But before asserting that the dentinal fibrils do not arise from the odontoblasts, as has been held by the best observers of the world, he should have obtained every possible view of them; he should have taken them apart one by one and examined them individually, so as to prevent all possibility of error. Several Voices. It can't be done. Tell us how to do it, etc. Dr. Black. It is a simple matter of technique. I can tell you how if you wish me to. When you have extracted a tooth, throw it at once into Mueller's fluid, and let it stay about a week. Then crack it in a vice. A little experience will enable you to split the tootb lengthwise without crushing the pulp. Now, catch the pulp with a pair of pliers, and pull it out of its bed. Some of the odontoblasts will adhere to the pulp, and the fibrils to a consider-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21230237_0075.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
