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CHAPTER II.

NATURAL HISTORY THE TEETH.

'•
We now proceed in this chapter to a consideration of the
Natural History of the Teeth, with a notice of various phys-
iological and anomalous phenomena connected with them.
The first who gave a description of the teeth was Hippocra-
tes Mattheus de Gradibus followed his example,J and
;f
Castrillo according to the remark of Douglas, wrote a dis-
sertation on dentition, and described the order the teeth fol-
low in their appearance. Celsus has also examined their
structure, their number, their position, their differences,
and traced the progress of the permanent teeth. Vesalius
has described the teeth of the adult, but their development
had not attracted his attention, and Ingrassias who was en-
gaged in observing the germination of the teeth, and in de-
scribing the vessels which contribute to their growth, admits
four dentitions ; the first, says he, takes place in the womb of
the mother, and the three others at different periods in the
course of life."
Fallopius had observed with attention the teeth in the
•
fetus, and he explains himself thus. " The jaws contain
two incomplete rows of teeth ; one comes out of their cavi-
ties sooner than the other, the anterior before the posterior :

* Dela Dentition ou du developpement des dents, dissertation presentee
etsoutenue a I'Ecole de Medicine a Paris, 1803.
t In text vii. oper. in fol. Paris 1639, page 5 to 10. par J. Grousset.
j De anatomia dentium, in oper. chap. 118, in folio. Paris, 1491.