746 
FRANK H. MILLER. 
known in the human family as pyrrhoea alveolaris, not only 
that a ’ more perfect comprehension of. its etiology may be 
gained alone, but that perchance onr energies may be quickened 
to tire end that an improved prophylaxy may be observed, which 
will in time at least, give a much greater immunity from an in¬ 
duced condition of disease which in onr patients has come to be 
looked upon as practically incurable. 
My personal experience has long since taught me to believe 
that dental caries as such is a primary and specific disease due 
to a specific organism living upon, and at the expense of, the 
dental tissue, is extremely rare in the lower animals as com¬ 
pared with ourselves. I am firmly convinced that in dogs at 
least quite ninety per cent, of the teeth which become diseased, 
do so from causes having their primary origin in inanition, 
rather than from the structures suffering from the direct attack 
of any specific disease, much less that of the so-called caries. 
I, with the majority of veterinarians, have been called upon 
to extract countless numbers of teeth, from canine patients, 
but in extremely few instances have I been able to conscien¬ 
tiously affirm that the general appearance of the lesions upon 
the teeth extracted, corresponded in any sense with those pre¬ 
senting themselves upon the human tooth extracted under diag¬ 
noses of caries. 
In practically all the teeth we extract from the animals, and 
especially those of the dog, we invariably find the disease con¬ 
fined principally, or wholly, to that part of the dental tissue 
which is normally contained within the alveola of the maxilla, 
whereas that portion known as the crown, and covered with 
enamel, is either entirely free of visible symptoms of disease, or 
is being but slowly invaded from the direction of the neck of 
the tooth. 
That the incrustations of earthy salts, commonly known as 
“ tartar,” which we are so frequently called upon to remove 
from the teeth of animals, and notably those of the dog, have a 
real importance in the study of disease and their prevention, I 
can in no wise doubt, but I am quite as free to admit its relation 
