Further studies on the exposed germ‐free dental pulp

Abstract
Summary. Refinement of techniques has made available much larger numbers of teeth for studying the response of the exposed pulp in germ‐free rats. At shorter time intervals the inflammatory response, in the absence of bacteria, was limited to the presence of scattered cells lying in the debris at the wound surface. Inflammatory infiltration of pulp tissue was not observed, even where large exposures were present. At longer time intervals some pulp necrosis was observed. This was considered to be the result of food packing into the open pulp chambers. The previous observation of a high incidence of dentine bridge formation in germ‐free animals was confirmed.