XVII - The morphology of the teeth

Summary

The maxillary incisors

The central incisors

Both I¹'s are present and damaged, most of the enamel being lost from the mesial and distal faces, as well as from the distal part of the labial face of the right I¹. The teeth are worn, the right more than the left, so that the height from the cervical line to the incisal edge is 8·1 mm. on the left and 7·4 mm. on the right. Thus the morphological features on only about the cervical two-thirds of the crown remain for examination.

The lingual surface is slightly shovel-shaped; the bases of the faintly raised, mesial and distal marginal ridges flank the lingual fossa. A small pit lies near the base of each marginal ridge, close to the mesial and the distal margins of the tooth respectively. Between the two marginal ridges are the cervical parts of two lingual depressions (‘mesiale und distale Vertikalgrube’ of Remane, 1960), separated in the[midst]of the lingual fossa by a slight cervicoincisal elevation (‘mittleren Hauptleiste’).

At the base of this cervico-incisal elevation, that is, on the upper part of the lingual face, is a rounded protuberance: we shall follow Robinson (1956, p. 23) in calling this the gingival eminence, and it corresponds to the ‘basale Verdickung der mittleren Hauptleiste’ which Remane (1960, p. 782) synonymises with tuberculum linguale or tuberculum dentale. The prominence is named ‘dental tubercle’ by Sicher (1949, p. 210).