[Variation in the prismatic arrangement of dental enamel surfaces]

Slightly etched prisms of human dental enamel surfaces were examined in the scanning electron microscope. The crystals in the central region of prisms showed a denser arrangement, similar to the crystals on the periphery, which determine their form here. A crevice-like space could be observed between the central and the peripheral region of a prism. The prisms on the enamel surface showed a wide variety in shape being either of fish-scale or key-hole form, in other places fully irregular. There was no uniform prism on a single tooth, and an interprismatic substance was never found. On the surface of a deciduous tooth a prismless enamel surface was observed consisting of edges of crystallites, which did not unite to prism formation.