Page 150 - My FlipBook

134 HUNTER ON THE TEETH.
push up the bodies of the Teeth through the sockets, -which
waste, and afterwards through the Gum, which also wastes, as
has been explained upon the cutting of the Teeth ; for before
this time the rising of the Teeth is scarce observable, as the
Pulp was at first nearly of the size of the body of the Tooth
itself, and wasted nearly in proportion to the increase of the
whole ossification
The Pulp has originally no process answering to the fang
;
but as the cavity in the body of the Tooth is filled up by the
ossification, the pulp is lengthened into a fang. The fang
grows in length, and rises higher and higher in the socket, till
the whole body of the Tooth is pushed out. The socket, at the
same time, contracts at its bottom, and grasps the neck, or
beginning fang, adheres to it, and rises with it, which contrac-
tion is continued through the whole length of the socket as the
fang rises ; or the socket which contained the body of the
Tooth, being too large for the fang, is wasted or absorbed into
the constitution, and a new Alveolar portion is raised with the
fang ; whence in reality the fang does not sink, or descend into
the Jaw. Both in the body, and in the fang of a growing
Tooth, the extreme edge of the ossification is so thin, trans-
parent, and flexible, that it would appear rather to be horny
than bony, very much like the mouth or edge of the shell of a
snail when it is growing : and indeed it would seem to grow
much in the same manner, and the ossified part of a Tooth
would seem to have much the same connection with the pulp as
a snail has with its shell.
As the Tooth grows, its cavity becomes gradually smaller,
especially towards the point of the fang. In tracing the for-
mation of the fang of a Tooth, we hitherto have been supposing
it to be single, but where there are two, or more, it is somewhat
different, and more complicated.
When the body of a Molares is formed, there is but one
general cavity in the body of the Tooth, from the brim of
which the ossification is to shoot, so as to form two or three
fangs. If two only, then the opposite parts of the brim of the