ON THE PREPARATION OF TOOTH SECTIONS, 199 



annoyance in its examination after a year or two, by the gradual 

 disappearance of its tubular structure. 



It was this experience which induced me to adopt various 

 expedients for obviating this annoying result, and although my 

 subject may be considered by some as well-worn, and as well 

 threshed out, I am hopeful enough to think that, by describing 

 the methods I adopt, I may perhaps be the means of assisting 

 some to attain results which will be regarded in after years with 

 satisfaction. I wish to be very plain and practical, therefore, if 

 ray communication appears somewhat of the character of the 

 cookery book of recipes, I hope your pardon will be extended to 

 me. Cookery books, although perhaps not the highest class of 

 literature, are nevertheless very useful in their results, and are 

 therefore not to be thoroughly despised. 



Text books, in treating of this subject, advise first that "thin 

 slices should be cut from the tooth with a saw." Now^, however 

 desirable it may be to cut a tooth into as many sections as possible 

 in order to be enabled to trace the various phases of structural 

 change throughout its extent, I think I need not remind those 

 who may have attempted this method of the numbers of saws 

 broken, to say nothing of those blunted and worn out in cutting 

 through the enamel of one tooth. A lapidary's wheel has also 

 been recommended for cutting the rough sections. This would 

 cut but few sections out of many teeth, the number of sections 

 depending upon the thickness of the wheel used ; and, further- 

 more, we may not possess lapidary wheels. With care, two or 

 three sections may be cut from a tooth by first cutting through the 

 enamel by wetting a new thin gold file with turpentine and soft 

 soap, or turpentine and camphor, and then using a broad frame 

 saw for cutting through the dentine. There is n'o difficulty after 

 the enamel is passed. It may oftentimes be grooved by a thin 

 corundum wdieel on the lathe, and the section cut by the saw 

 afterwards. The plan I adopt may be a very wasteful one, but 

 till we get a ready means of cutting through the enamel, I am 

 afraid I must continue to recommend and to adopt it. 



I take a tooth and hold it against the side of a revolving fine 

 corundum wheel till one side is ground flat ; then polish that 

 side to the most perfect polish it is capable of receiving on a 



