NEW ZEALAND DENTAL, ASSOCIATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15047, 17 July 1912, Page 7

NEW ZEALAND DENTAL, ASSOCIATION.

ANNUAL MEETING.

[BY TELEGKAPH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.] Wellington, Tuesday. The annual general meeting of the New Zealand Dental Association was begun today at Victoria College, Wellington. Mr. J. N. Rishworth (president) occupied the chair. There were foatween seventy and eighty delegates present from all parts of the Dominion. In his opening address the president said that New Zealand was very far behind the older countries. Dental hospitals were so easily equipped and managed that it should be possible to establish one in every centre of 5000 inhabitants. The cost of maintaining it would be trifling compared to the good results which would accrue. A dental inspection of school children would be of little value, except that it would focus public attention on the deplorable condition of the teeth unless we had some practical means of helping those people who were unable to pay. There was fdenty of scope for bequests for the establishment of dental hospitals, which institutions would be of untold value to the community. Roughly-speaking there was £500,000 spent annually in New Zealand by people who, in some measure, attended to their teeth. About half that amount would be saved if people only heeded the advice of their dentists and attended at regular intervals, say, every three or six months, for an examination.

The conference will continue until Fri day. On Thursday evening there will be an entertainment, at which the Prime Minister (Hon. W. F. Massey) and other members of the Ministry are expected to be present.