Page 109 - My FlipBook
P. 109
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from whence the teeth of this man cannot be regarded as
milk-teeth, since they never fell out, during dentition ; the
germs of the teeth were so much amalgamated and con-
founded with the osseous juice of the maxillary bones, that
it made but one and the same body ; it could not have
been possible that a second germ, supposing that it existed,
would have made its way through, and not been checked by
the presence of a body as hard and as compact as the com-
bination of the teeth with the maxillary bones.
I have omitted to mention many cases of endentula or
toothlessness with which I have become acquainted, either
by personal observation or the observation of my friends. I
know one gentleman in whom the bicuspid teeth of the
lower jaw, have never appeared. It is but a few days since
a highly respectable lady of this city showed me the teeth of
her daughter, a young lady of about eleven years of age, in
whom the lateral incisores of the upper jaw had never ap-
peared, and she informed me that this was the case with every
member of her family. There is at present resident in
*
Charleston, South Carolina, a family of whom several indi-
viduals have never had any teeth, and this has been remarked
for several generations.
SECTION VI.
OF SUPERNUMERARY TEETH, &C*
When we consider the formation of the teeth, and the con.
tiguity and intimate connection subsisting between their ru-
t Blake. Essay on the Teeth in Man, pages 110 to 116.