94 MR GOODSIR ON MUSKET-BULLETS FOUND IN THE TUSKS OF THE ELEPHANT. 



one tusk a cicatrix was seen occupying the hole through which the ball had 

 passed, a circumstance which, when seen in similar specimens, has greatly per- 

 plexed anatomists. It was observed, however, that, in this instance, the shot had 

 passed through that part of the tusk which had been within the socket ; and 

 bearing in mind that the tusk is an organ of double growth, it appeared probable 

 that the shot had been plugged up from within by the ossified pulp, and from 

 without by the continued growth of cement, without any regeneration of the dis- 

 placed ivory ; a hypothesis which was afterwards verified by examination. 



Before proceeding to give a more detailed account of this interesting process, 

 I shall state very briefly the opinions of those authors who have written on the 

 subject, so as to ascertain how near they had approached to the truth, and to 

 point out the fallacies which had led them astray. 



KLOCKNER mentions a ball of gold which was found by a turner of Amster- 

 dam in the substance of an elephant's tusk. The longitudinal fibres of the tusk 

 surrounded the metal in an irregular manner, and were separated from the sound 

 ivory by a concentric chink situated at some distance from the ball. 



CAMPER in the "Description Anatomique d'un Elephant Male," remarks, 

 that it is not unusual to see foreign bodies inclosed, or as it were soldered, into 

 the substance of the ivory. The same anatomist also figures and describes a 

 bullet which was inclosed in a very irregular mass of ivory, covered with long 

 appendages, which were directed parallel to the axis of the tusk. The metallic 

 bodies in question, he remarks, must have penetrated across the alveolus into the 

 hollow of the tusk, and must have remained for a long time in the substance 

 of the pulpy flesh which fills that cavity, because the ivory enveloped them on 

 all sides, and would at length have carried them beyond the alveolus by the in- 

 crease of the tooth. He supposes that the nodules which are formed around the 

 balls, and the very incomplete union of their fibres with the sound ivory, add 

 weight to this conjecture. 



RUYSCH in his X, Thesaurus, Plate II., figures brass and iron bullets inclosed 

 in isolated nodules of irregular ivory. 



BLUMENBACH considers the tusks of the elephant to differ from other teeth, 

 more particularly in the remarkable pathological phenomenon of bullets, with 

 which the animal has been shot, being found, on sawing through the tusk, im- 

 bedded in its substance in a peculiar manner. He looks upon this fact as im- 

 portant in reference to the doctrine of a " nutritio ultra vasa." He mentions a 

 tusk, equal in size to a man's thigh, in which an unflattened leaden bullet lay close 

 to the cavity of the tooth, surrounded by a peculiar covering, and the entrance 

 from without closed as it were by a cicatrix. From these facts BLUMENBACH con- 

 cludes that the elephant's tusk, when fractured or perforated, can pour out an 

 ossific juice to repair the injury. 



Mr LAWRENCE, in his Notes to BLUMENBACH'S Comparative Anatomy, over- 



