Caries Management: A Journey between Black’s principals and Minimally Invasive Concepts

Abstract

Caries is from the Latin word that means “rottenness”. Dental caries is defined as “an infectious microbiological disease of the teeth that results in localized dissolution and destruction of the calcified tissue” [1]. In the early nineteenth century, many theories were developed to explain the aetiology of dental caries; the psychic condition theory (Ancient Greeks), dental gangrene theory (Bell,1825), fungi theory (Leber and Rottenstein, 1867), and chemical theory (Magitot, 1878). However, most of them were rejected [2]. In 1932, Williams [2] isolated the bacterial films which covered the carious enamel and he referred to it as “bacterial plaque”. He assumed that caries was initiated by the fermentation of organic materials, which were present inside these films [2]. Williams findings introduced the most plausible explanation of the occurrence of dental caries, which is known as the “dental plaque theory”. This theory correlated the occurrence of dental caries with the presence of dental plaque [1].