[masraum]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Any dentists here? I knocked a chunk off of a tooth a few years ago. Out of curiosity I looked at it under my dissecting microscope. It had little red spots in it. Is that normal for tooth material?

Teeth have the pulp, then the bulk of the tooth is made up of dentin which isn't that hard, then the Dentin is coated in enamel which is hard. I don't think that what you were seeing was necessarily unusual.

Per wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentin

Dentin consists of microscopic channels, called dentinal tubules, which radiate outward through the dentin from the pulp to the exterior cementum or enamel border. The dentinal tubules extend from the dentinoenamel junction (DEJ) in the crown area, or dentinocemental junction (DCJ) in the root area, to the outer wall of the pulp.

Within the tubules, there is an odontoblast process, which is an extension of an odontoblast, and dentinal fluid, which contains a mixture of albumin, transferrin, tenascin and proteoglycans.