352 A MANUAL OF DENTAL ANATOMY. 



injury to the growing pulp, as it is of no unfrequent oc- 

 currence that elephants which have been shot at and 

 wounded escape. 



The thin walls of the tusk near to its open end do not 

 offer very much resistance to the entrance of a bullet ; the 

 result of such an injury is not, as might have been expected, 

 the death of the pulp, but in some cases abscess cavities 

 become formed in the neighbourhood of the injury, while 

 in others less disturbance is set up, the bullet becomes 

 enclosed in a thin shell of secondary dentine, or sometimes 

 lies loose in an irregular cavity, and round this the normal 

 " ivory " is deposited ; upon the outside of the tusk no indi- 

 cation of anything unusual is to be seen, so that the bullets 

 thus enclosed are found by ivory turners only when sawing 

 up the tusk for use. 



As the tusk grows, that which was once in the pulp 

 cavity, and within the alveolus, comes to be at a distance 

 from the head, and in the midst of solid ivory. 



As an example of the extent of injury from which a 

 tooth pulp is capable of recovery, may be cited a specimen 

 now deposited in the museum of the Odontological Society, 

 by Mr. Bennett, to whom I am indebted for permission to 

 figure it. 



It is to be presumed that a trap was set with a heavily 

 loaded spear, or that it was dropped by a native from a 

 tree, with the intention of its entering the brain of the 

 elephant as it was going to water, both of these methods of 

 killing elephants being practised in Africa. But in this case 

 the spear penetrated the open base of the growing tusk, 

 which looks almost vertically upwards (see fig. 150), and 

 then the iron point appears to have- broken off. This did 

 not destroy the pulp, but the tooth continued to grow, and 

 the iron point, measuring no less than 7J by 1J inches, 

 became so completely enclosed that there was nothing upon 

 the exterior of the tusk to indicate its presence. 



