A system of dental surgery / by Sir John Tomes.

  • John Tomes
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of dental surgery / by Sir John Tomes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    122/808 page 106
    Immcli (if tlie subject until the «i)eci;il iiTug'ularities alluded to arc desci'il)cd. Dental irreyularitics in some few instances are referable to the action of tiic law of correlation of growth ; in all the instances with whicli 1 am acquainted this law has operated in producing either deficiency or redundancy in the number of the teeth, rather than in causing tiie assump- tion of abnormal forms or position. Thirty-two being the inimber in a normal series of per- manent teetii, any deviation, wlietlicr it be in an excess or in a diminution of tliat number, will constitute an irregu- larity. In other words, there may lie irregularity from too many or too few teetii. Each of tliese forms of departure from the normal series is far from r;ire : liut of the two forms it is perhaps more common to find that in which the teeth arc in excess, one or two supernmiierary teeth, as they are termed, being present. The connection which seems to exist between the hair and teeth in respect of abnormal development has already been noticed, as was also the fact tliat such abnormalities are often inherited. At all events we will first consider that condition in which the teeth exceed the proper nundier. Suiiernumerary teeth may spring up during the second dentition in any part of the alveolar arch, and the forms of such teeth may either resemble those of special members of the normal sei'ies, or they may deviate from each of the recognised forms, and assume a somewhat irivgular conical sha])e, sutticiently chtiracteristic in itself to be at once recog- nised as that of a supernumerary tooth ('). Several cases, occurring eitlier in the first or tiie second dentition, liave come under niy own observation, in whicii five ccpially well-formed incisors occujiied the lower jaw. (') Seeing that .siiperniuuerary teeth assume two distinct forms, the one- being rcgiiiiiv, tlic otlier in'egiilar, it might, ]ici-liaiis, lie advantageous wlieii Rpeaidng of those whieh in no respect diti'er from members of the normal series, to use the term suiipleniental, reserving snperniiinerary for the irregiilar-sliapcd teeth.
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