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CARIES OF THE TEETH. 51

Sensitiveness of a uniform character sometimes
pervades all parts of the cavity, while at other times

it may be very intense at one point, and very slight
or entirely absent at any other. A thin lamina of the
dentine lining the whole cavity, may be uniformly
sensitive, and in some cases this sensitiveness may
involve the entire body of the dentine.
By means of this sensitiveness, warning is trans-
mitted to the pulp, which emits osseous material with
increased energy; and thus a process of rilling up the
natural cavity of the tooth is instituted, that the decay

may not encroach upon the pulp. But this warning
may, in some degree, be transmitted to the pulp,
though there be no increase of sensitiveness.
This sensitiveness is modified by the character of
the teeth, the nature of the decay, and the state of
the patient's constitution. The teeth of the same
person will be more sensitive at one time than at
another, because of a greater irritability of the nervous
system. Those teeth which decay most rapidly, are
usually most sensitive; though in teeth whose vitality
is lost considerably in advance of their decay, there

is no sensitiveness at all. Except in such cases as
last mentioned, the whitest and most rapid decay has
most sensitiveness, the brown much less and the black
scarcely any.