Dental caries is a dynamic disease, quite hard to encase. It quite parallels the task of defining the 'wind'. Hard to see, but can be felt and explained based on its effects. Preservation of a healthy set of natural teeth for each patient should be the objective of every dentist. All work in the health field is aimed basically at the conservation of the human body and its function. To understand the functioning of a machine, it's always better to dismantle and get to the individual specific pieces that propel the unit as a whole. Studying dental caries as a disease requires that it be put under a 'surgeons scalpel'.