process attention must first be paid to the almost straight and
sub-parallel course of the vessels in the pulp’s substance, and to
the remarkable regularity of form and size of the meshes of the
où j’adressai mes premières communications au Congrès de Birmingham, je w’avais pu en avoir
connaissance.”—Comptes Rendus, Octobre, 1842, p. 680.
In the 'Addendum to the Report of the Transactions of the Sections in 1839/ published
in the ‘ Report of the Eleventh Meeting of the British Association,’ 1842; the Council of
the Association adduce the following testimony of the Editors of the Literary Gazette and
Athenæum :—
“ Notices of Mr. Nasmyth’s papers appeared in*the Athenæum and Literary Gazette of
the period : those journals usually obtain such notices either from authors themselves or from
reporters of their own : in the present case the Council have been informed by the respective
Editors, that the report in the Athenæum of the two papers read to the Medical Section was
supplied, and the proofs corrected, by Mr. Nasmyth himself, and the notice of the geological
paper by the reporter of the Athenæum ; and that the report in the Literary Gazette was drawn
up by the reporter of that journal, from a rough manuscript furnished to him by Mr.
Nasmyth.”
Upon these ‘ Reports,’ furnished and corrected by Mr. Nasmyth, the following opinion
has been published :—
“ Reference having been made to us by a Council of the British Association for our opinion
whether the report of Mr. Nasmyth’s paper, as published in the Literary Gazette and
Athenæum, or in either of those two periodicals, or the report of that paper sent by Mr.
Nasmyth to Mr. Phillips for publication in the Report of the Ninth Meeting of the Association,
held at Birmingham, is more correct with regard to the points under discussion between
Professor Owen and Mr. Nasmyth, we have carefully examined these several documents,
and it appears to us that the main point under discussion between these two gentlemen is,
whether the account of the process of dentition, contained in Mr. Nasmyth’s paper, did or did
not comprise the theory that the ivory of the teeth is formed by the ossification of the pulp.
We find, with reference to this question, that in the accounts of Mr. Nasmyth’s paper, given in
the Literary Gazette and Athenæum, his opinions on that subject are involved in considerable
ambiguity ; for, while some passages in them would imply that he considered the proper
substance of the teeth as being formed by the addition of ossifie matter in the original structure
of the pulp, commencing and proceeding on its surface, these reports contain, at the same
time, other passages, in which the theory of the ossification of the pulp is distinctly and
terminal reticulation on the surface of the pulp. At the part
where calcification has commenced, I have commonly found the
extremities of the capillaries in a state of congestion and crowded
expressly disclaimed by Mr. Nasmyth ; whereas in the abstract of his paper, drawn up by
himself, with a view to publication in the Report of the Association, this theory is very
explicitly and unequivocally maintained. Whether this theory was distinctly advanced in the
original paper read to the Medical Section at Birmingham, it is not in our power to determine,
because that paper is not before us, and because we have no other evidence of the nature of its
contents than the printed documents already referred to.
(Signed) JAMES MACARTNEY,
One of the Vice-Presidents of the Medical
Section at the Birmingham Meeting.
P. M. ROGET,
One of the Vice-Presidents of the Medical
Section at the Birmingham Meeting.
G. O. REES,
One of the Secretaries of the Medical Section
at the Meeting at Birmingham,
November 16th, 1840.
It will be found by comparing the Reports in the Literary Gazette and Athenæum with
Schwann’s Treatise above cited, that the passages which imply that the proper substance of
the teeth is formed by addition of ossifie matter in the original structure of the pulp, are
verbal translations, taken, without acknowledgement, from that Treatise, which is only
referred to with a view of contradicting a conclusion to which Schwann inclines, without
proving either satisfactorily to himself or to others.
Whatever testimony Mr. Nasmyth may procure as to his private views on dental
development in 1839, it is incredible that he should have discovered, in the proper sense of the
word, that “ the ivory is neither more nor less than the ossified pulp,” and yet omit to state
this discovery in the Reports which, the Editors of the Athenæum and Literary Gazette affirm
that he himself furnished, and, in one Journal, corrected the proofs.
Mr. Nasmyth made another attempt to establish his date of priority ; the nature of which
will be understood by the following extract from the “ Adendum,” p. 11, ' Report of British
Association,’ 1842 :—