The relationship of oral disease to overall disease is certainly not a new concept. For centuries, the role of oral infection and inflammation in contributing to diseases elsewhere in the body has been studied and reported.
Going back to ancient timesin Greece, we learn that Hippocratestreated two patientssuffering from joint pain by removal of teeth. Clearly, this was an early example of oral disease being associated with afflictions elsewhere in the body.
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Then, moving forward in time from 1912 to around 1950, the era of “focal infection” dominated our thinking. Reports by individualssuch as WD Miller, William Hunter, and Frank Billings noted that in their opinion many of the diseases of humans could be traced to specific foci of infection elsewhere in the body, such as the teeth and gums, the tonsils, or the sinuses.
While these observations were not supported by sound scientific evidence, and in fact led to largely incorrect practices, they nonetheless brought attention to the effect of the mouth on the rest of the body.
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