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amel so as to leave a round furrow upon the surface of the
tooth
: at times we notice several of these furrows on the
teeth—sometimes one, two, or three teeth of a set will have
this appearance
; in other cases, the whole set with the ex-
ception of the dentes sapientia, or wisdom teeth, which I
have never seen thus affected
; still, I will not say they are
never so situated. Mr. Hunter says it is a peculiar kind of
decay, but not caused by any external agency, or, to use his
own words, " not to depend on accident, way of life, consti-
tution, or any particular management of the teeth," but that
it is an original disease of the tooth.
Others, I believe, have
imputed it to an improper or excessive use of brushes, or
tooth-powders, &c. &c; but I think
the true cause of this
situation of the tooth is owing to some disturbance given to
the membrane on which the enamel
is deposited. If the
membrane is ruffled the enamel will have this appearance.
And this is further corroborated from this, that these furrows
run either across, or length-ways, or diagonally on the tooth,
not confined to any particular direction, although across
is
the usual direction which these furrows have. The enamel
will generally be found as perfectly polished on this irregular
surface as on perfectly formed teeth, which would not be
the case if it proceeded from caries or the brush. I have
seen several cases of it in persons who never used the brush
to any extent in their lives. In one case of this kind, Mrs.
W. of Frankfort, I saw a whole set of teeth, except the
dentes sapientia, thus affected : every tooth appeared other-
wise perfectly sound. This lady had never used a tooth-
brush more, she assured me, than a dozen times in her life
:
she could give no account of the extraction of her infant
teeth. The following cases seemed to me to amount to a
demonstration that this peculiar appearance of the teeth is
owing to some disturbance of the membrane upon which