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Inaugural Dissertation. 51
formed remain of their natural white color; and again, teeth
once dyed with the madder do not lose the color by ab-
sorption, while the other bones are readily colored during, and
after their formation, though with the greatest facility, while
the animal is young, and this color is again lost by absorption.
Fourth—The teeth, he says, never change by age, and
seem never to undergo any alteration, but by abrasion, when
completely formed ; ihey do not grow soft like the other bones,
in mollities ossium.*
" From these experiments," says Mr. Hunter, " it would
appear that the teeth are to be considered as extraneous bodies,
with respect to a circulation through their substance ; but they
have most certainly a living principle, by which means they
make a part of the body, and are capable of uniting with any
part of a living body." Hunter's Natural History of the Teeth,
Page 39.
Mr. Charles Bell, who has paid considerable attention to
the teeth, comes to this conclusion :
" The phenomena displayed in the formation, adhesion, and
diseases of the teeth, show them to be possessed of life, and
they have a correspondence or sympathy with the surrounding
parts ; but we are prepared to acquiesce in the opinion of Mr.
Hunter, that they possess vitality, while yet they have no
vascular action within them." Bell's Anatomy.
Mr. Lawrence, in a note appended to his translation of
Blumenbach's Comparative Anatomy, has the following extra-
ordinary passage.
" The vascularity of the teeth is a doctrine refuted by every
circumstance in the formation, structure and diseases of these
organs.
* Mollities ossium, (a softness of the bone.) "A disease of the bone,
wherein they can be bent without fracturing them, in consequence either
of the inordinate absorption of the phosphate of lime, from which their
natural solidity is derived, or else of their matter not being duly secreted
and deposited in their fabric. In rickets, the bones only yield and be-
come distorted by slow degrees ; but in the present disease, they may be
at once bent in any direction".—Hooper's Med. Die.
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Inaugural Dissertation. 51
formed remain of their natural white color; and again, teeth
once dyed with the madder do not lose the color by ab-
sorption, while the other bones are readily colored during, and
after their formation, though with the greatest facility, while
the animal is young, and this color is again lost by absorption.
Fourth—The teeth, he says, never change by age, and
seem never to undergo any alteration, but by abrasion, when
completely formed ; ihey do not grow soft like the other bones,
in mollities ossium.*
" From these experiments," says Mr. Hunter, " it would
appear that the teeth are to be considered as extraneous bodies,
with respect to a circulation through their substance ; but they
have most certainly a living principle, by which means they
make a part of the body, and are capable of uniting with any
part of a living body." Hunter's Natural History of the Teeth,
Page 39.
Mr. Charles Bell, who has paid considerable attention to
the teeth, comes to this conclusion :
" The phenomena displayed in the formation, adhesion, and
diseases of the teeth, show them to be possessed of life, and
they have a correspondence or sympathy with the surrounding
parts ; but we are prepared to acquiesce in the opinion of Mr.
Hunter, that they possess vitality, while yet they have no
vascular action within them." Bell's Anatomy.
Mr. Lawrence, in a note appended to his translation of
Blumenbach's Comparative Anatomy, has the following extra-
ordinary passage.
" The vascularity of the teeth is a doctrine refuted by every
circumstance in the formation, structure and diseases of these
organs.
* Mollities ossium, (a softness of the bone.) "A disease of the bone,
wherein they can be bent without fracturing them, in consequence either
of the inordinate absorption of the phosphate of lime, from which their
natural solidity is derived, or else of their matter not being duly secreted
and deposited in their fabric. In rickets, the bones only yield and be-
come distorted by slow degrees ; but in the present disease, they may be
at once bent in any direction".—Hooper's Med. Die.
