What factors contribute to an overload of the immune system which causes a previously healthy person to become ill? If a person's root canal filling has not been affecting his health, what happens to change that status?

Dr. Price pointed out that sudden overloads or changes such as the Flu, a severe accident, pregnancy, breastfeeding, malnutrition, excessive worry,grief, changes and sudden overloads could tax the effects of the immune system to such an extent it could no longer control bacteria and toxins coming from the root filled tooth or teeth.

Influenza: During the flu epidemic of 1918, Price studied 260 influenza patients in five different hospitals. He studied both those who had dental infections and those free of infections.

Those who developed complications such as pneumonia, emphysema,carditis, severe neuritis, and severe rheumatism and also had dental infections numbered 72 percent. Those free of dental problems who developed such illness were only 32 percent.

Those who were free of dental infections were not apt to get the flu in the first place.

Rabbits inoculated with nasal washings of patients with dental infections developed pneumonia.

Statistics from England published two years after the flu epidemtic disclosed that four times as many people died of complications than from the flu itself.

Pregnancy and lactation: men and women as a group are evenly divided in their susceptibility to illness. That percentate increases to 93 percent of females and only 7 percent of males because of inheritance factors. The most important factors accounting for this change proved to be pregnancy and lactation.

New and expectant mothers having infected teeth frequently developed acute rheumatism. Inoculations from such patients into rabbits produced multiple illnesses in the rabbits.

Injury: Those who suffered accidents or injuries and had mouth infections were generally found to have slower than expected healing rates. We all know people who no sooner get over one illness when they get another.