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MICROORGANISMS OF THE MOUTH. 141

grow in any culture media. These latter may be seen in active
motion in saliva taken from almost any part of the mouth when
a drop is covered simply with a cover-glass without other prep-
aration.
This forms about a complete list of the microorganisms
found sufficiently constant in the saliva to regard them as regu-
lar dwellers in the mouth. We know very little of the functions
of these uncultivatable varieties. So far as we are now able to
judge from clinical observation, they are of no especial conse-
quence. The microorganisms which produce putrid decomposi-
tion, so frequently found in the mouth, are there by accident, if
we may term it such, for they are apparently always on hand,
wherever there is a material for putrid decomposition in the
mouth or elsewhere. To produce true putrefaction, they must
be in a position of complete exclusion of oxygen. There are,
however, decompositions closely resembling true putrefaction,
which occur without complete exclusion of oxygen.
Note.— In recent years some thread forms of microorganisms of the mouth have
been cultivated and the effort made to show them to be of pathological importance.
In an article in the Monatsschrift fur Zahnheilkiinde, 1909, page 24, there is an article
by Zahnarzt E. Paul, of Dresden, which gives a bibliography of articles on this subject.