XXXV 

 ON THE ENAMEL AND DENTINE OF THE TEETH 

 Quart. Journ. Microsc. Sd., vol. in., 1&55, J>p. 127-130 



The first part of the sixth volume of Siebold and Kolhker's 

 '' Zeitschrift fiir Wissenschafthche Zoologie,' pubhshed in July of the 

 present year, contains a paper by M. Edouard Lent, ' On the Develop- 

 ment of the Dentine and Enamel of the Teeth.' It could only be a 

 source of gratification to me that any one should have been led fairly 

 to investigate a subject, by the perusal of a paper of mine published in 

 this Journal, even if his results were totally opposed to those at which 

 I had arrived ; and I do not think that, as a general rule, controversial 

 writing is worth the paper it is printed on — assuredly, it is not worth 

 the time it wastes. I should, therefore, have had nothing to reply to 

 M. Lent's unfavourable expressions with regard to my labours, were 

 it not for two circumstances. In the first place, M. Lent is a pupil of 

 Professor Kolliker's, and appears to have worked under the eye of 

 that distinguished investigator. Indeed, the paper is so completely 

 sanctioned by Professor KoUiker, that I must regard him as responsible 

 for it. And in the second place, owing, as I suppose, to M. Lent's 

 inexperience as an author (though truly the superintendence of so 

 practised a writer as Professor KoUiker should have obviated this 

 difficulty), his paper is curiously inconsistent with itself, being in form 

 a severe criticism and refutation — but, in fact, a confirmation — of the 

 views I ventured to promulgate. 



My paper was intended to establish two main points — i. That 

 there is no evidence that the dentine is formed by direct conversion 

 of pre-existing elements of the pulp. 2. That the enamel is not 

 developed externally to the so-called basement membrane, or mem- 



