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MOUTH-BACTERIA AS EXCITERS OF FERMESTATION. 117

oral cavity where no carliohydrates exist, or where their amount
is very insignificant as compared to that of the alluiminous sub-
stances,—for example, in gangrenous pulps, also when particles
of meat decompose between the teeth. Pledgets of cotton
pressed slightly against the gums absorb the albuminous secre-
tion of the inflamed gums and very soon emit the disagreeable
odor of putrefaction. Ulceration or sloughing of the gums (sto-
macace. stomatitis ulcerosa, etc.) is, as is well known, likewise
a companied by marked signs of putrefaction. It cannot be
doubted that putrefaction alkaloids, ptomaines, must be formed in
considerable quantities during the intense putrefactive and fer-
mentative processes which are too often observed in very unclean
mouths, but what part they play and what influence they have
on the local and general state of the l)0(ly has not yet been fully
ascertained. (See Chapter XL)

C\ Fermentation of Fats and Fatty Acids in the Oral
Cavity.
AVhether and under what conditions the fermentation of fats
and fatty acids (mentioned on page 26) takes place in the human
mouth I am not at present able to state. Since, however, the
salts most lial)le to t-ause fermentation (lime-salts, especially lac-
tate of lime) are constantly being formed, we have every reason
to suspect that such fermentations do there occur.
I). Xitkification and Denitrification in the Mouth.

On page 30 I gave an account of various experiments which
have shown that fermentation processes in the soil, as well as in
artificial media, where there is free access of air, may lead to
the formation of nitrates fi'om organic matter, and that, on the
other hand, nitrates may be reduced to nitrites or to am-
monia when the air is excluded. The formation of nitric acid
in the human mouth has, as will be known to many, l)een advo-
cated by AVatt, the ammonia, undoubtedly formed in the mouth
in certain quantities by the ]»utrefaction of albuminous substances,
becoming, according to his view, oxidized to nitric acid. This
assertion of AVatt is, however, not based upon experimental