The object of A Treatise on the Progress and Shedding
41 the Human Teeth, by R. MACLEAN, is to direct the attention of "parents and guardians" to the care of teeth in children and young persons. Many a good mouthful of teeth has beer irretrievably ruined by the inju- dicious intermeddling of parents and the ignorance of quacks, who by premature extraction of the first set of teeth cause those irregularities of the second and permanent teeth, which subsequent neglect and the disease consequent upon it render unsightly, offensive, and painful. Ill-set teeth imperfectly perform the duty of mastication, and are pecu- liarly liable to that accumulation of tartar which produces discoloration and decay : indeed, Mr. MACLEAN tells us, that besides tainting the breath, it occasions disorders of the stomach and bowels. The torture of extraction—the most barbarous operation in the wholt range of sur- gery—is nothing compared with the pernicious effects resulting from its indiscriminate practice by the destructive dentists. The officious inter. ference with the course of nature by parents, arising from anxiety mis- eirected by ignorance, may be palliated ; but the destructive operations of the tooth-drawers by trade are intolerable. It cannot be too gene- rally known, that the extraction of a tooth is a last resource, only to be resorted to when it is perfectly certain that there is no other remedy.
To enable parents to understand the programs of the growth and shedding of the teeth, Mr. MACLEAN gives ten plates, illustrative of the different stages of teething, from three years old to the age of ma-
turity. This constitutes the principal feature of the book; which is indebted for some of its most valuable and original matter to the works of Thomas BELL and PATERSON CLARK, to the latter of whom the volume is dedicated.
Previous page
