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184 HUNTER ON THE TEETH.

3. Swelling of the Fang.
§
Another disease of the Teeth is a swelling of the Fang,
which most probably arises from inflammation, while the body
continues sound, and is of that kind which in any other bone
would be called a Spina Ventosa*. It gives considerable pain,
and nothing can be seen externally.
The pain may either be in the Tooth itself, or the alveolar
process, as it is obliged to give way to the increase of the Fang.
As a swelling of this kind does not tend to the suppurative
inflammation, and as I have not been able to distinguish its
symptoms from those of the nervous Tooth-ach, it becomes a
matter of some difficulty to the operator ; for the only cure
yet known is the extraction of the Tooth ; which has been
often neglected on a supposition that the pain has been nervous.

Vide Natural History of the Teeth, page 37.
that a mechanical force first excited the destructive action, it is difficult
to understand how its influence should continue when the teeth no longer
came in contact with each other. Again, if the action of the tooth-brush
will serve to account for the wearing away in a horizontal direction at
the necks of the teeth, it will not so readily explain the occurrence of
those cases where the wearing away takes place in the length of the crown,
still less will a mechanical theory explain the cases last mentioned.
In favour of the chemical theory may he mentioned the presence of
numerous mucous glands in the substance of the lips, whose secretion
may under certain circumstances have an acid reaction. The exposed
line which is often produced at the neck of the tooth by the receding of
the jaws will account lor the usual situation of the denudation, but should
the gum remain firmly adherent to the neck, then the secretion from
the glands of the lips may begin to exact a destructive action ou the
most prominent parts of the teeth. As the edges of the front teeth be-
come worn away, the lips naturally fall inwards, and continue to rest
upon the anterior surface of the teeth, and might even fill up the space
which we have seen is present between the six anterior teeth when
the denudation has commenced at the cutting edges.
After all, either explanation is a matter of conjecture rather than of
demonstration ; much more attention is required to be bestowed upon
the subject before it will be fully understood, but as the evidence stands
at present, it appears to the writer to be in favour of the chemical theory.