Treatise on the natural history and diseases of the human teeth : explaining their structure, use, formation, growth, and diseases, in two parts / by John Hunter ; with notes by Thomas Bell.

  • Hunter, John, 1728-1793.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Treatise on the natural history and diseases of the human teeth : explaining their structure, use, formation, growth, and diseases, in two parts / by John Hunter ; with notes by Thomas Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ,*** PREFACE. The state of Dental Surgery at the period when Hunter wrote the following work was perhaps lower than that of any department of professional science or practice. The treatment of the teeth was still consigned to the hands of the ignorant mechanic, whose knowledge was limited to the forcible extraction of aching teeth, the manufacture of substitutes for those which were lost, and some rude methods of filling the cavities produced by decay. That this state of a branch of practice, as susceptible of a connexion with physiological and pathological science, and as improveable by such a connexion as any other, should have early attracted the attention of a man preeminently qualified for detecting and supplying such deficiencies, and whose labours, unparalleled as they are for their scientific importance, are not less valuable from the immense in- fluence they have since exerted upon the practice both of medicine and surgery, might have been anticipated, from the peculiar cha- racter of his mind, which was too truly great to think any subject unworthy of his anxious attention which involved the improvement of the art of healing, or the extension of our knowledge of Nature's operations. If it may be stated that the work in question is perhaps the least felicitous effort of this extraordinary genius, and that of which the errors are the most obvious and striking, some apology may be found even for these, in the confined nature of the subject, and especially in the obscure and anomalous structure of the organs of which it treats; whilst the basis which his experiments and ob- servations have laid for subsequent improvements in our knowledge, both of the physiology and pathology of the teeth, as well as in the treatment of their diseases, constitutes a never-ceasing claim to the gratitude and admiration of every scientific practitioner of dental surgery. If, therefore, it may with truth be said that he was the father of scientific surgery; if he may claim the high distinction of having placed the practice of surgery upon the only solid founda- tion, that of physiological science, it is no less true of this humble 2