4l4 Scientific Intelligence. — Anthropology. 



Prussian Medical Journal, in which he endeavoured to prove 

 that the violent pain which occurs in caries of the teeth is not 

 caused by the laying bare of the nerve, and that caries, if un- 

 accompanied by any other aliment, is in most cases free from 

 pain. There are exceptions, however, to this rule which are 

 not uncommon. We find ordinarily two or more carious teeth 

 together, of which very often one gives great pain, and the others 

 which are much more injured, and in an apparently worse condi- 

 tion, give no pain. Despite of all palliatives, and all possible at- 

 tention in the avoidance of cold, the pain often lasts whole weeks 

 with increasing or decreasing violence, there is congestion and 

 repeated swelling of the face, sleep and appetite are banished, 

 and even the good constitution of the sufferer begins to be af- 

 fected. After the tooth, the author of all this suffering, has 

 been drawn, all complaints cease, and the patient soon recovers. 

 If the extracted tooth be now broken in two, or, what is bet- 

 ter, sawed longitudinally through the centre, we find that 

 from the carious part, which is often very distant from the nu- 

 cleus, there extend a black or brown streak into the cavity of 

 the tooth where the nerve lies. Sometimes this streak is not 

 very distinctly marked, and in this part the substance of the 

 tooth is only a little less white, duller, and more pellucid than 

 the surrounding structure. This change of colour occurs on 

 this account, because that the canals in the substance of the 

 tooth, which lie in layers close one behind another, and pass 

 from the circumference to the centre, are permeated with pus 

 (according to the examinations of Purkinje, Valentin, Gurlt, 

 and MuUer ;) they are denominated by the last mentioned au- 

 thor, " caniculi chalicophori."" In canes of the crown of the 

 tooth, the phosphate of lime which is contained in these canals 

 is absorbed, and during the suppuration, the carious matter fil- 

 trates still further from the base of the abscess into t!)ese little 

 pores : then not only the white colour is lost, but the nucleus 

 of the tooth (the nerve of) becomes affected, and this causes 

 the most intolerable pain. Every dentist of observation has seen 

 those dark streaks which pass to the nerve ; the little canals can, 

 however, only be seen under the microscope, and then only on 

 thin sections of the tooth prepared on a grinding-stoiie. It is 

 only from very acrid applications, and such as for a period pa- 



