EARLY DESTRUCTION OF THE TEETH. 105 



time enough to apply for advice when the pain 

 begins. 



We find this to be the system generally adopted, 

 and that most of our patients gain their experience 

 by the loss of several teeth before they have recourse 

 to the necessary means for the preservation of 

 those that are left. And I repeat, that this false 

 security arises from a prevailing prejudice that, as 

 in the other organs of the body, so in the teeth, dis- 

 ease cannot commence without pain. This impres- 

 sion is so generally true with respect to the diseases 

 of most of the internal organs, whose functions, 

 being immediately necessary to health and life, 

 cannot be deranged without uneasiness and suffer- 

 ing ; and also to most of the external parts, which, 

 being endued with extreme sensibility, experience 

 pain from the slightest and most superficial injury ; 

 that it has also become a received principle with 

 respect to the diseases of the teet/i. But such 

 persons are either ignorant of the fact, or they do 

 not consider it, that the enamel of a tooth is an 

 inorganic substance, and perfectly insensible, and 

 that the bony structure beneath is also so void of 

 feeling, that the destruction of these parts is effected 

 without pain or suffering. And further, they are 

 so universally led to believe that decay originates 

 in the internal structure of the tooth, and that the 

 exciting cause operates by inducing some internal 

 morbid process, commencing with inflammation of 

 the membrane, or the bony substance of the organ. 



