The Anatomy, Physiology, and Diseases of the Teeth, by Mr.
Litmus BELL (a second edition of which lies before us), is a very sound and able work; scientific, practical, and complete. Though plainly and even popularly written, it is not in the common sense of the term a popular book ; still less has it any marks of that spurious kind of popularity which promises impossible things and aims at attraction, not instruction. Into the successive points of the subject which Mr. BELL handles and exhausts, this is not the place to enter ; but one of his general views is sufficiently im- portant to be mentioned. According to our author, the teeth are vascular, and one cause of decay is internal inflammation. Hence he maintains, that caries (or as he prefers to call it gangrene) arises from within the teeth; and it follows of course, that though stopping may retard the progress of decay, it is by no means a certain preventive, and unless timely, carefully, and judiciously performed, will in many cases do more harm than good. Another important conclusion from the same premises is, that a sound tooth, or even a whole set of teeth, may ache; the treatment for which affliction is local bleeding by leeches,—a practice which the author recommends generally for diseases, or to speak more exactly, tortures, of the teeth and gums. It should be added, that the text is illustrated by plates ex- hibiting drawings of sound and gangrene teeth, and of the dif- ferent instruments Mr. BELL recommends.
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