Gian Filippo Ingrassia.
Gabriel Fallopius.
Gian Filippo Ingrassia (1510 to 1580), a distinguished Sicilian anatomist, was one of the first who spoke of the dental germ. He says that the existence of the tooth properly so called is preceded by that of a soft dental substance enclosed in the bone, and which he considers almost as a secretion of the latter.
Matteo Realdo Colombo, of Cremona, a pupil of Vesalius and his successor in the professorship of Anatomy at Padua, added but little, as regards the teeth, to what his master has taught. He combated the erroneous idea that the teeth were formed in the alveoli shortly before their eruption. Having dissected the jaws of many fetuses, and having always observed in them the existence of teeth, he could affirm with every certainty that the teeth begin to be formed in intra-uterine life.
Like Vesalius, Realdo Colombo believed that the permanent teeth were developed from the roots of the milk teeth; and, therefore, he advised the utmost caution in extracting these, since, if the whole root were removed, the tooth would not grow again.[287]
Gabriel Fallopius (1523 to 1562), the eminent anatomist of Modena, also a disciple of Vesalius, carried out accurate and successful researches in regard to the development of the teeth, and made them known in his book, Observationes anatomicæ, published at Venice in 1562, the year in which he died.
His investigations enabled him to show the falsity of the opinion held by Vesalius, that the permanent teeth are developed from the roots of the temporary ones. He was, besides, the first who spoke in clear terms of the dental follicle.