THE NEW DENTAL SCHOOL.

Evening Star, Issue 19274, 12 June 1926, Page 6

THE NEW DENTAL SCHOOL.

It was a stupendous field which Dr Picker ill surveyed for the labors of the youngest profession in his speech at the opening of the Dental School yesteidaj afternoon. In something of the spirit, we can suppose, in whipji the pioneers of New Zealand, few and far between, looked' upon the forests which they were to subdue to useful cultivation, or in which an earnest missionary computes the hosts of China, the Dean calculated that there are at least three million teeth of children alone in New Zealand urgently requiring treatment at the present time. Only three in every hundred of our children have sound teeth, and 30 per cent, to 50 per cent, of the teeth of the 9i per cent, are defective and infective. To cope with the enormous task which this condition presents there are, say, 700 qualified dentists in the dominion, mostly concerned with adults’ troubles, the State service of nurses, and the Dental School, with over one hundred students. The seven maids with seven mops laboring to sweep up the sea sands do not suggest a more impossible task, unless the public are to do more for their own health. Preventive methods, including a right use of fruit, are the only moans hy which the problem can be satisfactorily dealt with, but the public are slow to give their assistance, first through indifference, and, secondly, because fruit is too dear —absurd though it should bo to say so—to be a daily item of food in most New Zealand families. Wo can hardly hope that the Government will consider seriously Dr PickoriU’s ingenious suggestion that it should embark on a new enterprise of humanistic purpose —the storing aiS rationing of apples for children’s consumption. Its representative at yesterday’s ceremony, the new Minister ol Education, Mr Wright, evaded very dexterously the plain hints that were given him that it should commit itself to a basis of assistance which, while providing for research, should leave no room for any element of anxiety as to the future finances of the Dental School. The problem is thus left for the school and the dentists to grapple with, assisted, wc may hope, by a new measure of cooperation from the public, as their indifference to ifa importance in their own interests yields gradually to the efforts at enlightenment which are unceasing.

Some members of the public have done well in the latest instance. They have contributed very handsomely by their gifts to the equipment of the now building. The Government has also shown a true recognition of requirements in providing such a school as it has done. Inspection suggests to the layman, and the expert agrees, that it is a model building. On a now site an expert plan has been carried out, untrammelled by previous conditions, precisely as it was conceived, and the equipment that has been provided is also worthy. There is nothing extravagant in the provision made, but the whole impression is one of efficiency and adequacy. The fight against dental decay becomes an impressive thing when the facilities for training tho dentists of New Zealand are surveyed, and especially when one visits the big clinic, with its sixty chairs, in which as many patients can be treated-at one time. They will have the best of treatment ' and the students tho fullest training. Mr Sidoy’s gift of £I,OOO for a stock of precious metals to be used in the treatment of poor patients assures both those objects. As the father of this Dental School, and of dentistry as a high profession—something more than a mechanical trade—in New Zealand, Mr Sidey had much cause to be a proud man yesterday. He could say with reason (though ho was much too modest to say it): “I ■have built up a monument more lasting than bronze.” An army, it has been said, moves on its belly. The health of a nation to-day depends on its teeth. The Dental School of Otago is a national institution. May the Goveriu

mont be always mindful of that fact and of its great part in the scheme of things when sordid funds are required for its health in the future.