Dental Caries Among Eskimos of the Kuskokwim Area of Alaska

The marked contrast that exists between Eskimos free from dental caries and those among whom the disease is prevalent, as noted in the previous report in this series,1makes them particularly desirable as subjects for investigation of the disease, especially in the search for differences to which causative significance may be attached. This report presents the findings in a study of certain chemical characteristics of stimulated saliva of Eskimos with and without dental caries, following the lines indicated in a previous report by one of us.2The previous findings showed that the stimulated saliva of persons free from caries differs in several respects, in group averages, from that of persons with active caries. The group without caries yielded higher average values for total calcium, inorganic phosphate, carbon dioxide capacity and percentage of calcium removed after the specimen was shaken with tricalcium phosphate, Ca3(PO4)2, while