Synonyms
Teeth, tooth crown, tooth root, enamel, gums Medical: Dens English: toothAnatomy is the science that deals with the shape and construction of the body and its parts. What applies to the whole human body is also applicable to its individual parts, including the tooth. Roughly speaking, the tooth can be divided into crown, neck and root. Click here to go to dentistry.
The crown of the tooth
A distinction is made between the visible and non-visible parts of the tooth. The visible part, which is above the gums and protrudes into the oral cavity, is called the tooth crown. The outermost layer, so to speak the coating of the crown, is the tooth enamel, it consists of hydroxyapatite, an inorganic material that contains only 1-2% organic substance.
Hyddroxylapatite has a prismatic structure, which gives it a certain transparency. The tooth enamel is the hardest substance of the body. Under the enamel there is a second, much softer layer called dentin.
The dentine or dentin is much softer than the enamel, but harder than bone. It is interspersed with fine dentine tubules in which there are offshoots of the bone-forming cell processes. Both layers are not supplied with blood.
Therefore, they cannot be restored by the body in case of damage. Right inside the tooth there is the pulp. The pulp contains connective tissue, blood vessels and nerves and is connected to the entire organism.
The shape of the pulp is similar to that of dentine. In the course of age, the pulp diminishes in size by the addition of secondary dentine. The part of the tooth located between the crown and the root is called the cervix. It is the part of the tooth normally covered by the gum all around, at the transition from the crown to the root. This is also where the gum furrow (sulcus) is located, where bacterial plaque first settles and is therefore particularly susceptible to caries.
Crown shape and number of roots
The non-visible part of the tooth is the root of the tooth, which is located in the alveolus. It consists of dentin with a thin outer coating, the tooth cement. Connective tissue fibres, the periodontium, connect the cement to the bone and thus fix it in the alveolus.
The parodontium is thus the fixing and suspension apparatus that has to withstand the enormous chewing pressure. Inside the root of the tooth there is a so-called root canal, in which the blood vessels and nerve fibres from the pulp run to the end of the root, the apex, where they emerge and thus establish the connection with the whole organism. In single-rooted teeth this is straight, whereas in multi-rooted teeth the roots can be more or less slightly bent.
