FEAR OF DENTISTS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 146, 5 June 1936, Page 15

FEAR OF DENTISTS

Nervousness Done Away With APPARATUS OUT OF SIGHT (Own Correspondent—By Air Mail.) LONDON, May 14. it little group of connoisseurs stood round a glass case in tho New Horticultural Hall, Westminster, yesterday. With the enthusiasm of jewellers examining priceless pearls, they carefully matched their specimens. Colour, shape and quality were equally important, but they were not precious stones. The scene was the London Dental Trade Exhibition, and the subject of discussion—teeth.

The exhibition being technical, the public will not be admitted. Laymen might find it difficult to view dispassionately the hundreds of dental plates, revolving chairs, X-ray apparatus, vulcauisers and face-masks. But manufacturers of dental machinery have come from all over Europe to attend the exhibition, which will remain open until Saturday. “Most practitioners like to have the more complicated apparatus behind the chair, out of the patient’s sight,” a manufacturer said to me. “Once it was believed that elaborate machinery impressed patients, but now it is realised that it only made them nervous.” An X-ray apparatus no larger than an ordinary camera machines which sterilise instruments by hot air instead oi steam, and electrically controlled vuleanisers for preparing dental plates are among the latest developments.