To the Editor.—I very much appreciate Dr. Kaplan's close examination of our study and will attempt to answer some of the questions raised: (1) Anaerobic cultures should not be ignored when evaluating this problem, and for this reason anaerobic cultures were obtained. These cultures were planted in thioglycollate broth and subcultured on blood plates. I regret that these procedures were not more apparent in the text. (2) Regarding the studies mentioned by Dr. Kaplan, we can only reiterate our main thesis that it is difficult to compare our results with data obtained in adult patients for reasons outlined in our text. (3) The "recent study"1 referred to by Dr. Kaplan demonstrates the difficulty in comparing investigations. This study, conducted only in adults, makes no mention of (a) the method of patient selection, (b) the sampling techniques employed, (c) the quality and/or quantity of dental