The history and treatment of the diseases of the teeth, the gums, and the alveolar processes, with the operations which they respectively require. To which are added, observations on other diseases of the mouth, and on the mode of fixing artificial teeth / By Joseph Fox.

  • Fox, Joseph, 1776-1816.
Date:
1806
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history and treatment of the diseases of the teeth, the gums, and the alveolar processes, with the operations which they respectively require. To which are added, observations on other diseases of the mouth, and on the mode of fixing artificial teeth / By Joseph Fox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The teeth of robust and healthy persons seem to be equally liable to caries as those of the delicate and less healthy. Noso- logists mention, as one of the characteristic marks of predisposi- tion to phthisis, sound teeth of a beautiful, transparent whiteness. This must only be considered as an accidental circumstance, and not as a general rule; for great numbers of the persons, and especially those rather more advanced in years, who fall victims to this disease, have lost many of their teeth. The observation applies only to those delicately-formed persons who, unhappily, in our climate, so frequently fall victims to consumption. In the teeth of these persons, there is too small a quantity of earthy matter in proportion to that of the animal substance, on which account they have that fine transparent appearance. Mr. Hunter thought that teeth did not decay after a person had passed fifty years of age; but I have had many opportunities of observing that, even on this head, no certain opinion can be formed; for I have met with several persons who have not only passed fifty years without having caries in their teeth, but who have arrived at sixty without having felt the tooth-ache, and, after that period, have been obliged to have several teetli ex- tracted on account of the extreme pain, which the inflammation arising from caries had occasioned.