File:The Dental cosmos (1891) (14781473115).jpg

Identifier: dentalcosmos3318whit (find matches)
Title: The Dental cosmos
Year: 1891 (1890s)
Authors: White, J. D McQuillen, J. H. (John Hugh), 1826-1879 Ziegler, George Jacob, 1821-1895 White, James William, 1826-1891 Kirk, Edward C. (Edward Cameron), 1856-1933 Anthony, L. Pierce (Lovick Pierce), b. 1877
Subjects: Dentistry Dentistry
Publisher: Philadelphia, S. S. White Dental Manufacturing Co
Contributing Library: Yale University, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library
Digitizing Sponsor: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the National Endowment for the Humanities

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m, whichin some places at least was coarser than that of the primary dentine.This reticulum also appeared more irregular in the secondary than inthe primary dentine. To sum up my observations, I must maintain the presence of a re-ticulum of living matter throughout the dentine. It is decidedly MINUTE STRUCTURE OF DENTINE. 725 coarser than that seen and described by Frank Abbott in the enamel.It is most delicate in the interzonal layer of the crown between dentineand enamel, and coarsest in the region of the neck bordering on thecementum. The presence of a reticulum in protoplasm generallyis nowadays admitted as a fact beyond all doubt,—may even berepresented by means of photo-micrography. Since the history ofdevelopment shows that dentine arises from protoplasm the same asall other tissues of the body, we are prepared to understand the pres-ence of a reticulum of living matter in the basis-substance of thedentine also. The dentinal fibers are formations of living matter, the Fig. 8.
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same as are non-medullated nerve-fibers. It is scarcely necessary tosay that the dentinal fibers are not nerves, as suggested by JohnTomes, since we do not know of any tissue made up of nerves andbasis-substance. But living matter having the property of sensitive-ness and of conduction of sensations renders the dentine a living tissue,the more so as its basis-substance is likewise endowed with propertiesof life. My assertion finds proof by comparison of living with dead teeth,for in the latter the dentinal fibers were reduced to a series of granules,and the basis-substance appears irregularly dotted or spotted, instead 726 THE DENTAL COSMOS. of being reticular. The microscope therefore easily reveals the dif-ference between living and dead teeth. Another point of confirma-tion is that the portions of the dentine being most sensitive are richestin the supply of living matter, not in that of the fibers which are miss-ing in the interzonal layer of the dentine of the neck, but in that of

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