118 EARLY DESTRUCTION OF THE TEETH. 



filling; but the experiment seldom succeeds; we 

 can never say positively that it will answer, and 

 its failure is calculated to do harm, by creating a 

 prejudice against filling in favourable cases, where 

 success would be complete. 



Again, in making an artificial set of teeth, where 

 bone blocks and natural teeth are used, great nicety 

 is required in fitting them to the gold frame, and 

 also in adapting the pivots to the holes ; for if all 

 be not accurately performed, apertures will be left, 

 and the work of destruction will begin and go on 

 in the artificial, as in the pits and interstices of the 

 natural teeth.* 



If it be asked, how is it that the teeth of the 

 lower animals are almost quite exempted from dis- 

 ease, whilst the human teeth are so particularly 

 predisposed to it, and need so much care and watch- 

 fulness for their preservation? I would reply by 

 noticing the perfect covering of enamel upon the 

 teeth of the lower animals, and the regular mode of 

 their arrangement. They do not present fissures 

 and interstices, as the human teeth do, in which 

 the food may lodge ; and moreover, their food re- 

 quires a greater degree of mastication, and this has 

 a tendency to keep the teeth in a cleanly state. 



Not so, however, with man. He is the most 



* Thanks to Mr. Ash, and to a few other makers of mineral teeth, 

 for the introduction of a substance so well adapted to supply the loss so 

 often arising from the defective nature of the human teeth, — a sub- 

 stance not liable to inflammatory action, chemical action, or even to 

 abnormal action. 



