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469
their exactness and perspicuity. I repeat, that I do not
scruple to return to explanatory details as often as it shall ap-
pear to be necessary to a perfect understanding of the pro-
ceedings.
different Substances which
General Considerations on the
enter into tlie Composition of Incorruptible Teeth.
It would be a long time, without doubt, before the public
would have been in possession of all the advantages which
present themselves in the manufacture of incorruptible teeth,
if the dentists had not made known, that there were so many
difficulties to surmount.
If so little success has been made in this work, they ought
not to charge it to the want of zeal, nor their less knowledge
of chemistry, but uniformly to the absolute silence of the
treatises of chemistry, which are silent, or give absolutely
wrong information about the ingredients which it is necessary
to know.
Every dentist that would make incorruptible teeth, begins
by consulting the works of the most celebrated chemists,
such as those of Lavoisier, Fourcroy, and Thenard, and finally
draw up exact ideas on the work which they would under-
take. We can say with regret, they draw from the reading
of these works much general erudition, and but few hints
upon making incorruptible teeth ; in the mean time they are
led into error, in hoping for what can never be realized.
Indeed, who could hope to succeed in his work, when he
sees in all the treatises which we have cited, that such an
oxide makes a red, that such a one, a blue, that such another,
finally in its result, a yellow ; who does expect, I say, to at-
tain the method of making incorruptible teeth, by using the
oxides in the order in which they are mentioned ? Well
469
their exactness and perspicuity. I repeat, that I do not
scruple to return to explanatory details as often as it shall ap-
pear to be necessary to a perfect understanding of the pro-
ceedings.
different Substances which
General Considerations on the
enter into tlie Composition of Incorruptible Teeth.
It would be a long time, without doubt, before the public
would have been in possession of all the advantages which
present themselves in the manufacture of incorruptible teeth,
if the dentists had not made known, that there were so many
difficulties to surmount.
If so little success has been made in this work, they ought
not to charge it to the want of zeal, nor their less knowledge
of chemistry, but uniformly to the absolute silence of the
treatises of chemistry, which are silent, or give absolutely
wrong information about the ingredients which it is necessary
to know.
Every dentist that would make incorruptible teeth, begins
by consulting the works of the most celebrated chemists,
such as those of Lavoisier, Fourcroy, and Thenard, and finally
draw up exact ideas on the work which they would under-
take. We can say with regret, they draw from the reading
of these works much general erudition, and but few hints
upon making incorruptible teeth ; in the mean time they are
led into error, in hoping for what can never be realized.
Indeed, who could hope to succeed in his work, when he
sees in all the treatises which we have cited, that such an
oxide makes a red, that such a one, a blue, that such another,
finally in its result, a yellow ; who does expect, I say, to at-
tain the method of making incorruptible teeth, by using the
oxides in the order in which they are mentioned ? Well
