Hand-book of dental anatomy and surgery : for the use of students and practitioners / by John Smith.

Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hand-book of dental anatomy and surgery : for the use of students and practitioners / by John Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    sisting of the same materials—in one case con- stituting the induration of chronic pneumonia or bronchitis, in another that of phthisis—in all the agency being that of irritation; only in the case of phthisis supervening upon a pre- existing tendency to particular results. Now in the case of dental caries something very similar appears to occur. We have induration proceeding from hypertrophy of normal material, ending in disintegration and cavern formation. We have induration, or rather solidification, existing in certain cases with no such subse- <|uent results, but these, like the example already quoted, seem to be those where there is no tend- ency to assume the special morbid action. There may in the instance of dental caries be sup- posed to be superadded, the chemical action exercised on dead or feebly vitalised tissue by the oral fluids, but this is a matter open to some considerable doubt in the sense of a truly patho- logical element in the disease. It is more an event occurring when the disease has already run its course and terminated in death of the part. That condensation of the tissues takes place in dental caries has been known for long. Its