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From: werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: The tooth -- the truth.
Message-ID: <2044@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Nov-85 00:56:35 EST
Article-I.D.: aecom.2044
Posted: Sat Nov  9 00:56:35 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Nov-85 16:06:08 EST
Distribution: na
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 39

[Maybe I'm harping on this a little too much, but I don't believe in letting
incorrect information go unchallenged.]

From Wheater, et al. _Functional_Histology_ 1982 edition, p, 175.

	Fully formed enamel contains less than one percent organic material
and is the hardest and most dense tissue in the body.
	The structure of mature enamel is not fully understood, but it
appears that the process of mineralization is not uniform and, as a
result, mature enamel consists of highly calcified prisms separated so
so-called interprismatic material, which may differ only in the
orientation of its crystals.  Each prism extends from the dentino-enamel
junction to the enamel surface and may represent the enamel from a single
ameloblast [enamel-forming cell].
	Overlying the ameloblast layer are several layers of cells, also
of epithelial origin, which constitute the enamel organ.  As enamel
formation progresses, the Enamel Organ becomes reduced in thickness
compared with the earlier stages of its [embryonic] development. At tooth
eruption, the enamel organ, including the ameloblasts, degenerate leaving
the enamel exposed to the hostile oral environments, completely incapable
of regeneration.

[Let me repeat the last line: completely incapable of regeneration.]
[Let me translate the first: Microtubules are organic matter (made up of
protein). If < 1% of the matrix is organic, that rules out the presence of
microtubules, even if you don't beleive me that they only occur within
cells - which they do.]
[Incidentally, the text was accompanied by the Micrographs, so that one
could look and account for all the layers with one's own eyes.]

	Hence we're back to Stoll's claim that microtubular "flow"
regenerates Enamel being incompatible with the available evidence.  I
don't think he's being malicious in this respect - he's just repeated
someone else's claim.  
-- 

				Craig Werner
				!philabs!aecom!werner
     "I never knew there was anything wrong with me till I met Dr. Hackenbush."