THE ATTACHMENT OF TEETH. 213 



around the roots of the teeth, and are perfectly subservient 

 to and dependent 011 them, has already been described ; little, 

 therefore, need be added here, save that the soft tissue 

 intervening between the bone and the tooth is not sepa- 

 rable, either anatomically or from the point of view of 

 development, into any two layers, but is a single mem- 

 brane, termed the "alveolo-dentar-periosteum." That it is 

 single, is a matter of absolute certainty \ there is no difficulty 

 in demonstrating it in situ, with vessels and bundles of 

 fibres traversing its whole thickness from the tooth to the 

 bone, or vice versd. 



The nature and development of the sockets in those 

 few reptiles and fishes which have socketed teeth require 

 further examination. I am not, from what I have seen in 

 sections of the jaws of a young crocodile, inclined to regard 

 them as in all respects similar to the alveoli of mammalian 

 teeth. At all events they are not developed in that same 

 subserviency to each individual tooth; on the contrary, 

 successive teeth come up and occupy a socket which is 

 already in existence. 



Although there are animals in which implantation in a 

 spurious socket is supplemented by anchylosis to the wall 

 or to the bottom of the socket, no example of anchylosis 

 occurring between the tooth and the bone of the socket has 

 ever been met with in man, or indeed in any mammal ex- 

 emplifying a typical socketed implantation of the teeth. 



HUNTER. On the Anatomy of the Human Teeth. 



TOMES, J. Dental Surgery. 1859. 



HTJMPHERY. Transact. Camb. Philos. Soc. 1863. 



WEDL, Pathology of the Teeth. 



HEUDNER. Beitrage zur Lehre von der Knochenentwickelung, 

 &c. 



TOMES, CHARLES S. On Vascular Dentine and Hinged Teeth. 

 Philos. Transac., 1878, and Quart. Journal 

 Micros. Science, vol. xvii. new series. 

 Transac. Odontolog. Soc. 1874 1876. 



