Dental care and oral hygiene, Structure and arrangement of teeth

Dental care and oral hygiene

                    Teeth are hard, calcified structures, attached to the upper and lower jaws of vertebrates and of a few lower animals.

Human teeth

                        Human teeth serve major functions other than chewing. The teeth are directly involved in the process of speech. The teeth also affect the  appearence of face and modified by the loss of neighboring teeth or by any irregularity in tooth growth or colouring.

Structure and arrangement of teeth

Teeth arrangements

              In buccal cavity, different types of teeth are arranged in definite order and embedded in gum socket.

                Human teeth consist of three parts; crown, neck and root. Only the crown part is exposed. Neck is surrounded by gym.

               The root is embedded in a bony socket of the jaw. The outer layer of the crown is composed of calcified tissue known as enamel the hardest and shiny substance in the body.

                   Internally the tooth contains a cavity called pulp cavity because it has a nourishing and sensitive material called pulp. The pulp is made of gelatinous connective tissues, lymph vessels, blood capillaries and nerve endings. Stellate cells called odontoblast line the pulp cavity.

                   Odontoblasts produce a substance called dentine, a bone like substance extending from the inner surface of the enamel into the jaw to form the root. Dentine is further covered over by another hard substance in the region of root and neck. It is called cement.