128 VETERINARY DENTAL SURGERT. 



teeth may be considered as a foreign body, yet it 

 possesses inherent . vitality. It is supplied with 

 blood and with nerves and is covered by periosteum 

 which has the power of secreting the cementum. 

 It possesses all the elements necessary to produce a 

 healthy growth of all the structures which go to 

 make up the tooth. Indeed the teeth in dentigen- 

 ous cysts are always sound themselves, no case to my 

 knowledge being on record where they were found 

 carious. I have seen a goodly number of such teeth 

 which have been removed by various surgeons but 

 never saw any other than a perfectly sound one. 



We frequently find that foreign substances 

 which have become lodged in various parts of the 

 body become encysted and produce no bad results. 



Abdominal pregnancy furnishes us an excellent 

 example where a body foreign to its location may 

 exist for years and produce no bad results. Two 

 cases of this kind have come under my own personal 

 observation where sows did well, thrived and fat- 

 tened as though nothing unusual had happened. I 

 have in my possession at present two pigs which were 

 in the abdominal cavity eighteen months, were fully 

 developed encysted, and gave no trouble to the 

 animal. The owner of the hog was not aware that 

 anything unusual had occurred until the animal was 

 butchered for market. The above does not clearly 

 belong in a work of this nature, yet it admirably 



