A new system of treating the human teeth : explaining the causes which lead to their decay, and the most approved methods of preserving them : with copious and explanatory notes : to which is added some account of a discovery made by the author for the cure of tooth-ache, and tic douloureux. &c. &c / by J. Paterson Clark.

Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new system of treating the human teeth : explaining the causes which lead to their decay, and the most approved methods of preserving them : with copious and explanatory notes : to which is added some account of a discovery made by the author for the cure of tooth-ache, and tic douloureux. &c. &c / by J. Paterson Clark. 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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    Perhaps it would be difficult to instance a case of lateral decay where the teeth do not touch. They often have not sufficient room in the jaw, which occasions them to press against each other. When the disproportion between a jaw and its teeth is so great that the latter can with difficulty arrange themselves in the na- tural dental circle, their consequent pressure against each other proves injurious, partly by cracking the unyielding flinty substance of the enamel, and partly by diminishing the internal free supply of nourishment to the tooth at that part, as in case of ligature, and perhaps principally by forming a rallying point for the lodgement of irremediable impurities, as in the instance of natural indentations. Whether all or any of the causes here assigned be the real source of caries, or not, certain it is that crowded teeth decay in this manner. This deduction is strengthened by the fact, that where the disproportion between the teeth and jaws is so very great as to force a sufficient number of the former completely out of their proper circle, producing the appearance of