T h e present Work includes the substance of the Lectures on
the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Teeth, which
formed part of the Hunterian Courses delivered at the Royal College
of Surgeons in the years 1837, 1838, and 1839. In the first of
these courses the teeth were considered in their relation to the
Osseous System, and the intimate structure of their component
tissues was more especially treated of: in the second, they were
regarded as parts of the Digestive System, and, besides their structure,
their various configurations and proportions, in subserviency to the
habits and food of the different species, were described : in the third,
the development of the Teeth was considered in connection with
that of the epidermal appendages of the Tegumentary System, in
consequence of a close analogy in the form, structure, temporary
duration, and reproduction of the formative matrix.
The views of the structure and development of the Teeth, and
the consequent deductions as to their place in the system of
tissues, their physiological relations, and their value as zoological
characters, advanced in those Lectures and in contemporary publications,*
are more fully and connectedly treated of in the following
pages. *
Like the other subjects of the Hunterian Lectures, and in accord-
* ‘ Report of the British Association,’ vol. vii, 1838, p. 135. ‘ Comptes Rendus de
l’Academie des Sciences,’ 4to. 1839, p. 784.