Dentil

“ The enamel is restricted to the front of the incisor, so that in gnawing the softer dentine is worn away at the tip faster than the enamel, thus keeping the tooth sharp. There are no canine teeth. Rodents are mostly herbivorous in diet, are usually small, and have clawed digits. ”

“ In cases of difficult dentition, the best remedy, according to Musitano, for facilitating the eruption of the teeth consists in friction of the gums, once, or at most twice, with blood drawn fresh from the comb of a cock!249 If, however, even this remedy fails to produce the desired effect, it will then be necessary to lance the gum at the point where the tooth is to erupt, or to press it hard with the thumb, that the tooth may the easier come through. ”

“ The scalpriform incisors of the rodents, already alluded to, have the enamel band on the front face of the tooth; the softer dentine behind wears away more rapidly, keeping the cutting surface bevelled, like the edge of a chisel, while the hard enamel forms the sharp edge. In some instances the enamel is absent altogether and the teeth are composed entirely of dentine, as in the elephant tusk. ”

“ I. All men's teeth are naturally in a state of total decay or caries, and, therefore, no man can bite until every one of them is extracted and a new set is inserted according to the principles of dentistry adopted by this Society.
I, for one, should want to discuss that before signing my name to it, and I should say this:—Why, no, that isn't true. There are a good many bad teeth, we all know, but a great many more good ones. You mustn't trust the dentists; they are all the time looking at the people who have bad teeth, and such as are suffering from toothache. ”

“ The brain of the hare can, by being rubbed on the gums and jaws, serve for two important purposes, since it has not only the virtue of facilitating dentition, but also of making teeth grow again to those who have lost them! The brain of a partridge applied to a carious tooth makes it fall in pieces!
The treatment of odontalgia embraces, according to Gaddesden, both general and special means of cure. To the former belong purgatives, bloodletting, scarifications of the labial and sublingual mucous membrane, leeches, the application of scarified cuppings under the chin. ”

“ Butter, either alone or with honey, is very useful for children; and is very helpful, especially during dentition, in the diseases of the gums, and to cure the ulcers of the mouth. To prevent the disorders that generally accompany dentition, it is a useful thing that the child should wear a wolf’s tooth, or one of the first teeth lost by a horse. ”

“ Although the dentine is not as unchangeable as enamel, but manifests, by becoming firmer or softer, that it is not quite uninfluenced by tissue-changes, yet its caries is not an irritative process that the dentine takes an active part in, but a passive process, and consequently the removal of all diseased portions and the protection of the non-carious part of the tooth suffices to stay the morbid process completely. ”

“ A moment's reflection will show the folly of extracting teeth to make room for those out of alignment, and modern dentistry has
proved that such extraction will defeat the object for which it is undertaken, viz., the restoration of the perfect denture. A man who will extract a tooth in regulating may be foolishly clinging to the old tradition, that was spoken of just now, that the unfortunate child had inherited large teeth from one parent, and small jaws from the other. ”

“ The gums are pale, or violet-red, hard and lumpy, sometimes bleeding; the toothache is continuous. Among the numerous remedies recommended against this malady (mouth washes, frictions, draughts, pills) , one particularly deserves mention: it is the urine of a child used as a mouth wash.
7. Tchong-che-tong. Pain in the teeth after mastication; there is also sometimes excoriation of the gums; flow of purulent mucus mixed with blood; bad-smelling breath; the tooth falls; it is decayed, and one can perfectly well distinguish a small hole; the root is unsound ”

“ The ashes of the head of a hare is a useful dentifrice; and if spikenard be added, it will lessen the bad smell of the mouth. Some mix with it the ashes of the heads of mice. In the side of the hare is a bone as sharp as a needle; and many advise pricking the teeth with this when they ache. The heel of the ox kindled and brought close to loose teeth makes them firm. The ashes of this bone mingled with myrrh is a good dentifrice. A good dentifrice is also made from the ashes of the feet of a goat. ”

“ The teeth are composed of very hard bone and enamel. The latter is a substance exceeding in density any other in the body. It covers the crown of the teeth, and is thickest in those parts which are most exposed to forcible contact in mastication; but, in no place, is it more than the twelfth of an inch in thickness.
10. The most common disease of the teeth is caries, or decay, and almost every part of them is liable to be affected by it, but especially the sides of those in front, and the crowns of those on other parts of the jaws. ”

“ The teeth are a fruitful source of suffering and of disease; and are, with truth, styled "our first and our last plagues." Dentition is the most important period of a child's life, and is the exciting cause of many infantile diseases; during this period, therefore, he requires constant and careful watching. When we consider how the teeth elongate and enlarge in his gums, pressing on the nerves and on the surrounding parts, and thus how frequently they produce pain, irritation, and inflammation ”

“ It is a not unfamiliar experience for a man to go to a dentist, get into a chair and point to a toothache in the upper right or northeast corner of his mouth and have the dentist tell him that the toothache he thinks he is having there is really in the root of a tooth in the right lower or southwest corner. ”

“ For that matter, teeth, as is well known, can be extracted, cleaned and put back again, or teeth from one persons mouth can be put into the place of an extracted tooth in another's mouth and become firmly imbedded and do good service for years. The part of the jaw-bone that embraces the roots of the teeth is called the alveolar process, and it continues to grow and harden for some time after the teeth have been erupted, or after they have changed their places in the jaw. ”

“ Each tooth has a biting part or crown covered by enamel, a neck Where the gum surrounds it, and one or more roots or fangs fitting into sockets (alveoli) in the jaw bone. For surgery of the teeth see Dentistry.
There are thirty-two permanent teeth in man, sixteen in the upper and sixteen in the lower jaw; they are also arranged in symmetrical sets of eight teeth on each side. ”

“ Ali Abbas, another great Persian physician (who died in 994) , wrote a lengthy treatise on theoretic and practical medicine, one chapter of which is dedicated to the diseases of the teeth. When a molar tooth is affected by caries, and the pain cannot be subdued in any other way, Ali Abbas applies, inside the carious cavity, the end of a small metallic tube, into which he repeatedly introduces red-hot needles, leaving them123 in the tube until quite cooled. ”

“ In the third book of Aphorisms, where Hippocrates speaks of the illnesses that prevail in the various seasons of the year and in the various ages of life, mention is also made of the accidents of dentition. The twenty-fifth aphorism says: “At the time of dentition, children are subject to irritation of the gums, fevers, convulsions, diarrhea; this occurs principally at the time when the canines begin to come forth, and in children who are very fat or constipated.” ”

“ If our examination of the mouth discloses anything likely to interfere with mastication the aid of the dentist should at once be sought, but every physician should be so far acquainted with disorders of the teeth as to be able to say, in the majority of cases, at all events, when this is necessary. ”

“ There are few adults who cannot describe the pangs of tooth-ach from their own feelings. It is generally intermittent, seldom dangerous to life, except during the{263} first dentition of infancy. Its constant symptoms, pain, flow of saliva, restlessness: its variable symptoms, swelled face, carious loosened teeth; fistula, exostoses of the gums and jaws. The causes, inflammation of the periosteum of the teeth, gums, or jaw; suppressed perspiration; moist air; catarrhal defluxion; suppressed habitual evacuations, nasal hemorrhage and venesection; plethora; intermittent, scorbutick, arthritick ”

“ Every woman, and especially every mother, should know the time and order in which the infant teeth come, and, when any of the above symptoms appear, should examine the mouth, and if a gum is swollen and inflamed, should either have a physician lance it, or if this can not be done, should perform the operation herself. A sharp pen-knife and steady hand making incision to touch the rising tooth will cause no more pain than a simple scratch of the gum, and usually will give speedy relief. ”

“ The front teeth are called incisors because they are used to cut the food. The back teeth are named molars because they are used in grinding the food.
Fig. 32 —Photograph of teeth not kept clean, showing how germs and a sour substance called acid eat holes in them and thus cause decay and toothache.
Toothache.—Toothache is a common ailment, and yet it can be entirely prevented. A tooth does not ache until it has a hole in it. The tender nerve within gives us warning that it is being hurt. The dentist can stop the ache and mend the tooth so that it will not ache again. ”

“ The form, the disposition, the number of the teeth, varies in animals, according to the quality of their food and according to whether the teeth serve merely to divide and to chew the alimentary substances, or as instruments of offence and defence as well. In man, the teeth serve principally for mastication, but the front ones have, besides, another most important office, namely, that of assisting in the articulation of words, in the pronunciation of certain letters. ”

“ The dentine tubes cither run regularly closely side by side, when the teeth have greater power of resistance; or they branch and surround cellular bodies, or even small air-vesicles, when the teeth fall an easy prey to caries. ”

“ In these days of advanced dentistry, the people of this country have been educated up to such an appreciation of their dental organs that, from the highest to the lowliest, we find the people habitually saving their teeth by having them filled. ”

“ As the tooth wears, the surface, besides the external enamel layer as in an ordinary simple tooth, shows in addition a second inner ring of the same hard substance surrounding the pit, which adds greatly to the efficiency of the tooth as an organ for biting tough, fibrous substances. ”

“ If these bones are efficiently exercised during the formation of the teeth—and my remarks apply especially to the permanent set—the tooth-germs will be abundantly flushed with blood, while the ample growth of the jaws themselves will provide the germs with plenty of room in which to grow and to develop, and the more perfect their growth and development the more resistant should we expect them to be to the ravages of caries. ”

“ Leeks must not be eaten, as such a food, by its own nature, is injurious to the teeth. (8) The teeth must be cleaned, at once, after every meal, from the particles of food left in them; and for this purpose must be used thin pieces of wood somewhat broad at the ends, but not sharp pointed or edged; and preference should be given to small cypress twigs, to the wood of aloes, of pine, rosemary, of juniper, and similar sorts of wood which are rather bitter and styptic; care must, however, be taken not to search too long in the dental interstices and not to injure the gums or shake the teeth. ”

“ When the teeth are carious he directs us to scrape them, and [295] apply to them a mixture of the flowers of roses, galls, and myrrh, and to hold undiluted wine in the mouth. When the teeth are slackened by any accident, he directs us to fasten them to the surrounding ones with a golden thread, and then to hold some stringent decoction in the mouth. When in young persons a second tooth appears before the first has fallen out, he recommends us to scarify around the latter and pull it out, and to endeavour to force the other gradually into its proper place. ”

“ Few of us now fear the dentist chair. A study of the microbes that live in our mouth has made it possible to keep our teeth from decay. Must perchance a tooth be pulled, then we take a sniff of gas, and go our way rejoicing. ”

“ A most excellent dentifrice, which cleans and preserves the teeth, is made by mixing together two ounces of brown rappee snuff, one of powder of bark, and one ounce and a half of powder of myrrh. When the gums are inclined to shrink from the teeth, cold water should be used frequently to rinse the mouth; a little alum, dissolved in a pint of water, a tea-cup full of sherry wine, and a little tincture of myrrh or bark, will be found extremely beneficial in restoring the gums to a firm and healthy state. This receipt was given verbally by one of our first dentists. ”

“ On the under surface of this oblique tooth band (still taking the lower jaw) , and close to its edge, appear ten thickenings, below each of which the mesoderm rises up into a “ dental papilla, " and so moulds the thickening into a cap for itself-the “ enamel organ.” ”