Abstract
The first dental textbook pointing to oral bacterial colonies as the driving force behind systemic disease appeared in 1890.1 In this seminal text more than 130 years ago, Willoughby Dayton Miller wrote the following: “It has been established beyond all question that myriads of micro-organisms are constantly present in the human mouth, and that these, under favorable circumstances, are capable of manifesting an action of the utmost significance upon the local as well as the general health of the patient.”
Miller continued, “These various disturbances are produced partly by the direct action of the micro-organisms and their products upon the teeth and the mucous membrane of the mouth, partly by constant swallowing of large masses of bacteria, partly by carrying them into the lungs, particularly by violent inspiration, and, finally by their obtaining an entrance into the blood or lymph-vessels in the various ways described…”1
A critical look at the historical and contemporary data connecting periodontal disease to systemic disease proves Miller’s writings to be nothing short of visionary at the very dawn of dental bacteriology. This review will link these data and trace the last 160 years of medical discovery in the peer-reviewed literature.
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