Page 13 - My FlipBook

DENTAL, SURGERY.

PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.
If the value of any science is to be estimated by its com-
parative utility, Dental Surgery will hold a distinguished
place in the esteem of mankind. When we consider the
extensive influence which the state of the teeth exerts upon
the functions of the stomach and the organs of digestion,
this subject rises in importance, and assumes a character and
consequence, not usually ascribed to it.
This science dates its origin from remote antiquity, and is
coeval with the first families of the earth. From the mo-
ment that the principles of mortality were impressed upon
the organs of man, those destined for the comminution of his
food, became implicated in the common frailty, and, sympa-
thizing with all the other members of his body, were found
subject to disease, decay, and dissolution.
It is easy for us to conceive, that among the most rude
nations, and in the earliest state of society, many important
facts connected with this subject, were well understood.
The Natural History of the Teeth, as far as regarded their
development ; and their Anatomy, so far as concerned their
form, external appearance, and insertion in the jaws, must
necessarily have been known to the earliest races of men.
If, prompted by affection, feeling, or the dictates of religion,
they had burned their dead, or had inhumated them from
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