DESERT DENTISTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 302, 22 December 1941, Page 3

DESERT DENTISTS

WORK OF N.Z.E.F. UNIT OLDEST IN BRITISH ARMY (OSctal War Correspondent, S2tr.) CAIRO, November 24. Queued up outside the tented, dugin dental hospital of a New Zealand mobile cental unit deep in the Western Desert was an amazing file of soldiers and airmen from all parts of the British Empire. They came from New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and Mauritius. There were Maoris and several Libyans. "My Libyan gentlemen are excellent patients." said a dental officer who had made it his especial job to look after the Libyans. Four dental chairs, with foot-operated drills and all essenttal equipment, and four well-known New Zealand dentists, soon patched up the dental defects. Broken sets were repaired with hand-operated lathes, soldiers who had lost their sets were soon fitted with new ones. With all the gravity in the world, those who had lost their teeth told suspicious stories of how they lost them, for, above all, they were out to avoid an entry in red in their pay books. The army charges the careless soldier for loss or breakages. Great work is being carried out bv this dental unit. Its dental hospital is well established, but in addition sub-sections travel out to brigades and carry out any dental work necessary among the battalions. A section consists of a truck, a driver, a dental officer, a dental mechanic, and an orderly. Any mechanical work, any i nllings- and any extractions can be I undertaken in the very heart of the desert, but surgical work is out of the question Chief work of the mobile dental unit is maintenance and urgent ex- j tractions. If it becomes necessary to j carry out an urgent surgical dental 1 operation, a medical officer could be! co-opted to give a general anaesthe-! tic. New Zealand's mobile surgical i H" 1 , 1 Is , re P"ted to be the oldest of j its kind in the British Army. It was formed half-way through the last S. ar - So - paradoxically, the youngest Dominion has the oldest Army Dental Corps.