STREPTOCOCCI IN DENTAL CARIES

¹ Department of Anatomy and the Department of Bacteriology, Hebrew University—Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel

The subject of this paper is the description of methods in caries investigation devised to verify the fact of bacterial invasion. The methods employed were: (a) tapping bacteria directly from clinical cases in routine preparation of cavities, and (b) identification of the organisms by cultural, morphological, biochemical, and serological methods.

Our results have shown that the organisms most frequently found in the floor of the cavities of initial caries are microaerophilic streptococci not fully identified as yet.

Our broader goal, the determination of bacterial identity by antigenic analysis, was not achieved with the limited material on hand.