Periscope of Medical and General Science in their Relations to Dentistry. [Volume: 2, Issue: 8, March, 1861, pp. 457-465]

458

THE DENTAL COSMOS.

King of France, who is said also to have had three rows by some writers
who exaggerate the expression of Bartholinus, who reports the case:
'Item duplici vel triplici ordine dentium, qualem in priscibus nonnullis
vidi et qualem Ludovicus XIII. Galliarum rex habuit.'
"A third variation is the appearance of teeth at a later period than the
normal one. Van Swieten gives the case of a girl whose osseous system
was well developed and health perfect, but who had no teeth before the
nineteenth month. Rayger relates the case of a girl who got her four
temporary canine teeth when thirteen years old; Fauchard, that of a child
from five to six years, who had a few incisors only. Brouzet knew a child
twelve years old who had but one-half of the normal contingent set of
teeth, the alveolar margin having the firmness and solidity of the gums of
old age. Duges has seen the first tooth appear in the eleventh, and
Smellie in the twenty-first or twenty-second year. Lanzoni knew a child
who had the first tooth and the power of speaking intelligibly in the
seventh year. Ashburner reports the case of a very delicate though lively
child, with large head, tumid abdomen, and peculiarly small-sized extremities, who cut the first tooth, an upper incisor, at twenty-two months, and
remarks that many cases of tardy access of speech and stammering are
connected with erroneous development of the teeth. Schoepf Merei, who
relates the case of a child who had the first tooth at three months, and
eleven at eleven months, has seen a child who had no teeth when several
years of age. Maury attended a girl of seven years who had not her first
lower incisors, the space being sufficient for three teeth, and the alveolar
processes being low and narrow. I have had under observation a boy to
the age of two years and ten months, at which time he had not a tooth
nor a symptom of approaching dentition. The records of the children's
department of the German Dispensary of the City of New York contain
a similar instance of a child two years of age. Among the four hundred
observations on dentition reported by Eichmann, there were a few in which
the first tooth cut at twenty-two months, and in a case described by
Churchill, the first tooth cut at seven years of age.
"A fourth variation, of which there are a very small number of observations, consists in the absence of teeth. Botallus gives the case of a woman
of sixty years who never had a tooth. Oudet is of the opinion that the
cause of this anomaly must be looked for in an early inflammation and
suppuration of the dental germs. Valla reports the case of Pherecrates,
and Baumes that of an adult man who never had teeth.
" The fifth anomaly is the absence of a number of teeth, instances of
which are also on record. One or two have been mentioned by me.
Storch describes the case of his own daughter, who had no canine teeth;
Linderer that of a girl fifteen years old, who never had either of the
four upper incisors. I have myself known a lady with but two upper
incisors.
" Finally, the following anomalies of doubtful character may be mentioned: Plutarch and Valerius Maximus report that Pyrrhus, King of
Epirus, and a son of Prusias, King of Bithynia, had only one bone on
each jaw, instead of the full contingent set of teeth. And Bernard
Jengha was in possession of a skull, in the upper jaw of which (this being
the only one found) only three dental masses were contained, the central
one corresponding with the incisors and canine teeth, and each of the
two exterior ones with five molars. Perhaps, however, these cases belong
to the class of those described by Eustache and Sabatier, in which a num