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their teeth, even after the upper part of them has appeared
through the gum."
As frequent opportunity occurred in the course of this
essay to mention the vessels and nerves of the teeth, I would
not have allotted them a distinct chapter, were it not that Mr.
Hunter asserts that the teeth are nearly inorganic, and also,
that " we can actually transplant a tooth from one person to
another"* Although transplanting teeth was for some time
practised, yet the dreadful consequences which so frequently
ensued, as well as the bad success which commonly attended
this operation, induced its most strenuous advocates (I trust
for ever) to lay it aside.
Mr. Hunter in support of his doctrine, asserts, " he could
never trace the nerves distinctly even to the beginning of the
cavity."f Yet Eustachius seems to have been much more
fortunate in his dissections of man as well as other animals,
which appears from the following quotation : " When we
pass from the grinders to the small teeth, the nerve with its
concomitant artery is divided into two branches, one of
which passes out through the hole in the jaw near the lower
lip ; the other branch proceeds on to the roots of the incisores,
and sends each a twig, one portion of which is expanded on
the external membrane of the root, but the other, and that
the most delicate, passes into the internal cavity. This fact,
indeed, can be easily observed, even in the human body, by
those who are engaged in accurate dissections. But it is
truly wonderful, and seems almost inconsistent with the laws
of nature, that the incisores and canine teeth, which are
small and have only one root, possess large and conspicuous
branches of nerves and vessels, whilst the grinders, which

* Nat. Hist, pa^es 38 and 126.
See also part II. pages 94, 95, &.<;,
* Nat, Hist, page 42.