To the Editor: —InThe Journal, January 15, p. 192, "M.D. of Illinois" writes for information as to "the desirability or not of curetting the alveolar processes and suturing the gums thereafter following the extraction of teeth." When apical infection ensues from a tooth containing a diseased pulp, the infection enters the spongy-like tissue of the alveolus and this becomes from that moment really the infected area. Only in old chronic cases does the outside of the end of the root become a focus of infection. The so-called granuloma is composed of granulation tissue surrounded by a capsule of fibrous connective tissue, apparently an effort to hinder the penetration of the toxins further into the alveolar structure. The granuloma is almost invariably infected with nonhemolytic streptococci; in fact, it is a colonization point for their propagation. As the granuloma grows in size, as it always does, it progressively destroys the