Dr. Price made bacteriologic examinations of three different dental infection areas. To his surprise, he found, for the most part that no matter how large an involved area or how much pus was flowing, comparatively few bacteria were present. He interpreted this to mean the body's white blood cells and other defense mechanisms had good control of the infection process present.

Dr. Price reasoned that the large areas of bone destruction and pus about these infected areas were not a measure of the severity of infection, so commonly believed, but were in actuality expressing the goodness of the involved patient's immune defense capability.

Condensing osteitis cases proved to be quite different. This condition exhibits a very dense area of bone, sometimes with very little loss of bone at the tooth's root end.

However, the tissue as the root end was incapable of controlling the bacterial growth in these cases and consequently some bacteria escaped through the bloodstream and set up diseases in other areas.

These observations by Price are so diametrically opposite to the average dentist's view and comprehension of what is occurring that many will have difficulty accepting these findings, in spite of the fact they were derived from studies of 1400 patients.

Such examples were shown to emphasize there are other dental disease conditions than those mentioned, but they represent a much smaller proportion of cases and are not indicative of the average person's experience.