SCHOOL DENTISTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19860, 2 February 1928, Page 10

SCHOOL DENTISTRY.

The New Zealand Division of Dental Hygiene continues its work on an ascending scftle. During 1927 the treatments, including fillings, extractions and minor operations, numbered 260,995. In 1926 the total was 201,002. It is an uncomfortable thought that such a mass of dental disease calling for treatment should be found among the young children who pass through the hands o, ! the working in the schools. With the staff, which has been increased steadily since the work began in 1921, occupied at full pressure, under 60,000 children were receiving regular treatment. This shows how many are not reached by the service even yet. The Director of School Hygiene, reporting for the year 1926, recorded that 66,285 children had been subjected to full medical examination, which includes a scrutiny of the teeth. Of the number 4.86 per cent, proved to have perfect sets of teeth. Here is the proof of need for every atom of effort put into the dental work done, and for its extension until far more than 60,000 children are under treatment. In many respects the standards of health in New Zealand The low rate of infant mortality, and the high expectation of life, are both excellent indications of what should prevail. In the incidence of dental disease the scale goes heavily the other way. The work now afoot in the schools, the endeavour to attack this evil as early in life as possible, the effort in particular to instil the habit of caring for the teeth and having them treated periodically, are the answer to an imperative demand to remove a national reproach. Hand in hand with the earnest campaign carried on by the Plunket Societies, it should help to give the coming generation better teeth than the general average of born New Zealanders have ever had.