INTRODUCTION. Iv 



terminal reticulation on the surface of the pulp. At the part 

 where calcification has commenced, I have commonly found the 

 extremities of the capillaries in a state of congestion and crowded 



expressly disclaimed by Mr. Nasmyth ; whereas in the abstract of his paper, drawn up by 

 himself, with a view to publication in the Report of the Association, this theory is very 

 explicitly and unequivocally maintained. Whether this theory was distinctly advanced in the 

 original paper read to the Medical Section at Birmingham, it is not in our power to determine, 

 because that paper is not before us, and because we have no other evidence of the nature of its 

 contents than the printed documents already referred to. 



(Signed) JAMES MACARTNEY, 



One of the Vice-Presidents of the Medical 

 Section at the Birmingham Meeting. 



P. M. ROGET, 



One of the Vice-Presidents of the Medical 

 Section at the Birmingham Meeting. 



G. O. REES, 



One of the Secretaries of the Medical Sec- 

 tion at the Meeting at Birmingham. 

 November 16th, 1840. 



It will be found by comparing the Reports in the Literary Gazette and Athenaeum with 

 Schwann's Treatise above cited, that the passages which imply that the proper substance of 

 the teeth is formed by addition of ossific matter in the original structure of the pulp, are 

 verbal translations, taken, without acknowledgement, from that Treatise, which is only 

 refeiTed to with a view of contradicting a conclusion to which Schwann inclines, without 

 proving either satisfactorily to himself or to others. 



Whatever testimony Mr. Nasmyth may procure as to his private views on dental 

 development in 1839, it is incredible that he should have discovered, in the proper sense of the 

 word, that " the ivory is neither more nor less than the ossified pulp," and yet omit to state 

 this discovery in the Reports which, the Editors of the Athenaeum and Literary Gazette affirm 

 that he himself furnished, and, in one Journal, corrected the proofs. 



Mr. Nasmyth made another attempt to establish his date of priority ; the nature of which 

 will be understood by the following extract from the "Adendum," p. 11, 'Report of British 

 Association,' 1842 : — 



