Dr. Weston Price spent 35 years...in research. [For 14 years,] he was the...Director of Research for the Amercian Dental Association.... He studied diseases of the heart, kidney, uterus, nervous system and endocrine system resulting from toxins seeping out of root canal filled teeth. He became aware that a certain percentage of people are sensitive to toxins that are manufactured within these dead teeth. The treatments he researched are basically the same...that are [the] foundation of today's root canal work. Research convinced Dr. Price of many truths that we still have a hard time...[understanding], even today. We remain bogged down in "that's the way we've always done it" thinking. We have been too habitual to adopt this sense of new "truth". His extensive research covered 24 procedures.... In...[his]...[day], before extensive use of x-ray, the infection in the root canal went unnoticed or disguised itself as bone absorption. Local comfort of a treated tooth was...a sign of success.... Only...pus flowing from a tooth was...a sign of failure. However, Dr. Weston Price looked beyond the obvious.

WHAT DID PRICE FIND IN HIS RESEARCH THAT CONVINCED HIM THAT PEOPLE COULD NOT TOLERATE ROOT CANALS?

A tooth contains enamel, dentin and a central pulp chamber. The central pulp chamber can be sterilized to a reasonable degree by removing its contents of nerves, arteries, and veins and flushing it with 27 chemicals.  The dentin, however, is composed of thousands of tiny "dentin tubules" that are unreachable by this flushing procedure. Although microscopic in size, these tubules are quite adequate to house billions of bacteria. If one were to take a front tooth and arrange the dentin tubules end to end, they would...[measure] three miles. The tubules are wide enough to accomodate 8 streptococci abreast. They are of the streptococcus Viridians family and are normal inhabitants of the mouth.  When a tooth becomes decay prone, they invade the tooth and start killing tooth tissue.  When they reach the pulp chamber, they invade not only the pulp tissue, but also the dentin tubules.  When a dentist cleans out the pulp chamber, he removes all the bacteria in the chamber, seals the tooth, and that's when a new action begins.... [This] points out Howe's misinterpretation!  In an "anaerobic" condition, or one that contains no oxygen, these streptococci mutate, undergoing a slight change in...body form and metabolism to adapt to this new environment.  Now, instead of producing slightly offensive waste products, these transformed bacteria produce a potent...TOXIN.  Our immune system...cannot get into the tiny holes in the outside of the root to destroy the bacteria. Toxins can seep out.  Fluids containing nutrients can seep into the tooth, so the bacteria continue to thrive in confinement. If the body launches a big fight against the toxins, pus forms around the tooth. Conventional wisdom says that pus is bad for the patient and dentists give antibiotics until it's gone. Price found the pus to be nearly sterile, although socially disagreeable. Its presence was the sign of successful quarantining [of] the toxins from the tooth....Another disturbing situation uncovered by Dr. Price was that x-rays frequently miss abscesses found on the front or back of a tooth. About 30% of teeth have extra canals which may exit anywhere from half way down the tooth to all the way down at the tip, like they are supposed to. They can exit on the front, back, or side of the tooth. Those "other" canals that abscess are ones that are apt to be missed on the x-ray.

Q. WHAT ABOUT ROOT-FILLED TEETH THAT DO NOT FORM PUS OR GIVE PAIN?

Q. WHAT IS THE FACTOR THAT DETERMINES WHO IS THE MOST SUSCEPTIBLE TO PROBLEMS FROM ROOT CANALS?

Dr. Price recorded 140,000 determinations in 1200 patients to come up with his answer.... Bottom line, it is hereditary. If your biological inheritance for two generations, including brothers and sisters of your grandparents, were resistant to degenerative diseases, then you are not apt to launch an immune response against a root canal. On the other hand, if there was a high frequency of heart, kidney, diabetes and reproductive disorders,...you're more apt to be susceptible.

Q. SOMETIMES A PERSON OF HEALTHY GENETIC STOCK CAN DEVELOP DISEASES AS A RESULT OF REACTIONS TO MOST ROOT-FILLED TEETH. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?

...the abuse of alcohal, drugs and caffeine stress our system. Dr Price found there were other stresses.... Exposure tend[s] to push people over their threshold and allow the root canal[ed] tooth to become a problem. The challenge could exceed the person's resistance. The two greatest stresses...were pregnancy and influenza (flu). [Price found,] under the influence of either of these conditions, the toxins from root-filled teeth were much more apt to produce disease at the person's specific susceptible site. Other stresses were grief, anxiety, chilling, severe hunger and acute chronic infection.

Q. IF YOU HAVE A ROOT CANAL AND WANT IT REMOVED, DO YOU JUST PULL THE TOOTH?

NO. This may lead to more problems. ...the attachment from the tooth to the bone, called the periodontal ligament, must be removed with a dental burr.... This irritates the old bone and stimulates it to form new bone. ...studies at the  University of Colorado looked at the biopsies of bone under removed root-filled teeth. Lymphocytes of auto immune disease were embedded at least a millimeter into the bone, sometimes more. All this must be removed if good bone healing is to be achieved. Dr. Price's research, published in many peer reviewed journals (i.e.: J.A.M.A.., J.A.D.A.O), has never been refuted.

The aim of Root Canal Therapy is to save a tooth which has become infected or dead, in an attempt to make it functional and pain free. 

After scraping out the inside of the tooth the dentist will attempt to disinfect the tooth and the canals to eliminate any source of infection.  The canal is then filled with a combination of cement and Gutta Percha in an attempt to completely occlude these canals.  This is supposedly to prevent any microorganisms from entering the tooth either through the crown or the root. 

If you consider pain control, mechanical function and aesthetics to be the limit of good dental treatment, then you will have "SAVED" the tooth. 

If systemic effects are included in your concept of dentistry, than all that has happened, is that you have kept dead, infected tissue, buried in the bone, within a couple of inches from your brain.

For some...reason we are all conditioned to think that teeth are not a part of the body,  but that they are inert calcified material, and that they are sort of dead anyway. Dentistry is the only one of all the medical & para-medical professions that thinks it is a good idea to keep dead, gangrenous tissue in the body.

One eminent Endodontist says:

It is wrong to speak of  (Root Canal Therapy) as a dead tooth; it is more correct to describe such a tooth as non-vital or, better, pulpless.  Even though the central blood supply to the tooth has been lost, the tooth itself still retains its connection to the body via the periodontal membrane and the cementum.

The Oxford dictionary defines non-vital as Fatal To Life.  It defines Dead as No longer Alive.  It is like saying that even though the blood supply to your leg may be completely cut off, it would be wrong to suggest that the leg is dead, because it is still connected to your body by your hip joint.