hat this disease is responsible for far more loss
of teeth than is decay.

[Sidenote: Systemic Injuries from Mouth Infection]

But this is not the only evil. In the pocket pus is continually being
formed and discharged into the mouth and swallowed. Also, as the teeth
rise and fall in their diseased sockets in ordinary chewing, bacteria
are forced into the circulation and may be carried to distant parts,
where they work harm according to their nature, selecting tissues for
their operation in which they can best thrive.

[Sidenote: Focal Infection]

It was formerly supposed that the ill effects from such conditions as
dental abscess and other pus foci were wholly due to the toxins or
poisonous products thrown into the blood-stream by the bacteria at the
focus. It is now known, however, that the bacteria migrate into outside
tissues through the blood- and lymph-streams. In joint affections, they
clog and obstruct the small blood-vessels, interfering with the
nutrition of the joint-tissues, causing deformity and enlargement, as in
arthritis deformans, as well as in acute inflammation, such as rheumatic
fever. Indeed, this condition of subinfection, or "focal infection," is
coming to be recognized as a far more important cause of disease than
the time-honored autointoxication, a term which has been greatly abused
and misused.

[Sidenote: Autointoxication]

The term "autointoxication" should properly be restricted to conditions
where poison arises from changes in the tissues or in the activities of
cells or organs, whereby substances are released into the circulation in
quantities harmful to the organism; in other words, where the secretions
of the body are altered, either in character or quantity, to such a
degree as to cause injurious effects, such as overactivity or
underactivity of the thyroid gland, or suprarenal gland.

The poison from undigested food, or from decomposing intestinal
contents, should be termed "intestinal intoxication," or "toxaemia,"
rather than "autointoxication," or "self-poisoning," as it is actually
due to infection from outside sources. Intestinal toxemia is, no doubt,
a fairly frequent cause of illness, but it has lately been shown that
stagnant bowels may cause true infection by micro-organisms that
penetrate the tissues, and that many conditions ascribed to intestinal
stagnation and the resultant chemical poisoning may actually be due to
focal infection, or subinfection, arising in other