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THE DECAY OF TEE TEETH. 123

his the property of healing wounds and of encapsuhng musket-
balls without the intervention of the pulp or pericementum. In
regard to this point they write, " The present writers have had
no chance to study an elephant's tusk immediately after its in-
jury, but the illustrations, as given by Carl AVedl, are sufficient
for the assertion that all changes in the ivory are produced by an
inflammatory reaction around the foreign body driven into it."
Against this view, obtained li'om the examination of four wood-
cuts, we have the unanimous voice of Cu\'ier, Owen, Goodsir,
Murie, Tomes, and all the most recent writers on this subject.
I personally have examined not less than lifty-two cases of gun-
shot and lance wounds of elephants' tusks, and well-nigh one
hundred abscess-cavities, and, without entering into a discussion
of the question here, will simply state that not a single one of
all these cases attbrds the slightest indication of any inflammatory
reaction on the part of the ivory.
In the third place, Heitzmann and Boedecker attempt to
establish their views of inflammatory action in dentine through
microscopical investigations. They have found and illustrated in
the articles aljove referred to " excavations of the dentine which
are identical with those seen in the process of absorption of the
dentine of temporary teeth, and those of secondary dentine in
the neighborhood of an inflamed pulp." The thought naturally
occurs to every one that the authors have simple cases of absorp-
tion before them. They affirm, however, that the "diagnosis of
primary eburnitis was established by the presence of such exca-
vations in the middle of the dentine, without any connection with
the surface or the pulp-chamber of the tooth."
It must be supposed that the connection or non- ^lo- ^^ "
connection of the excavation with the surface of the
tooth or pulp-chamber was established by macro-
scopical examination of the tooth before cutting or
by serial sections, since the occurrence of absorption
lacunse in the middle of a preparation would, of
course, not exclude the possibility or probability of
an outlet on some other plane. For example, in the accompa-
nying diagram (Fig. 58 a)^ a root in which absorption is going
on at f^', a section through the plane b would show excavations