44 DENTITION OF MAMMALIA. 



mission that in some of his specimens the epithelium 

 had been abraded, rendering the follicles and papillae 

 somewhat unnaturally open to the surface. Goodsir 

 used to say that Monsieur Robin, who objected to the 

 open follicles, did not look at the structures (embryonic) 

 sufficiently early, and therefore he only saw the follicles 

 when they were really closed sacs. Satisfied with the 

 general accuracy of his own observations, and seeing 

 nothing to shake his faith in them, Goodsir took no 

 steps to put himself right with his French contempo- 

 raries. The writer of these pages has always looked 

 upon Goodsir's Memoir on the Teeth, his first effort in 

 developmental anatomy, as his best work, and is happy 

 to find his humble opinion supported by the best 

 authorities in Britain — Owen, Sharpey, Huxley, and 

 others. The minute exploration of the anatomy, the 

 historical sequence and application of the data obtained 

 to both physiology and pathology, give a character and 

 finish to Goodsir's researches, which no special work 

 or parts of volumed history on the subject had ever 

 furnished. 



In the following year, 1839, he read a paper to the 

 British Association " On the Follicular Staa;e of Denti- 

 tion in the Ruminants ; with some remarks on that 

 process in the other orders of Mammalia," and an- 

 nounced the fact, that at an early period of embryonic 

 life, the cow and sheep possess the germs of canine and 

 superior incisive teeth, the former existing as developed 

 organs in two or three genera only of ruminants, the 

 latter beinnj found in the aberrant family of camels, 



