DENTIST AND DOCTOR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22223, 25 September 1935, Page 16

DENTIST AND DOCTOR

I NEED FOR CO-OPERATION "RECKLESS EXTRACTIONS" CONSERVATISM IN PRACTICE [BY TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] , NAPIER, Tuesday i The need for closer co-operation , between the medical and dental proj fessions, and the necessity for a measure of conservatism in dental praci tice were urged by Mr. R. G. Crawford I in his presidential address to-day to the conference of the New Zealand ; Dental Association in Napier. : "Let us save serviceable teeth whenever possible, and above all let us do , unto our patients only what we would ; have done unto ourselves," said Mr. Crawford. He deplored the wholesale i extraction of teeth without regard to ; the patient's future. Mr. Crawford said it might safely be laid down that the surgeon, the physician, and the dental surgeon must ; advance hand-in-hand with their interchange of practical knowledge, their ; mutual esteem, and their consideration of one another, in order to meet present-day requirements, namely, the hopes and demands of suffering humanity, which arrest attention and engage sympathy. A Branch of Medicine Recently, said Mr. Crawford, Mr. Charles H. Mayo had made the following statement: —"Talking of the interdependence of medicine and dentistry is like talking of the interdependence of medicine and surgery or of medicine and obstetrics. The practice of medicine includes dentistry, and dentistry is a special branch of medicine." "I would now solicit your attention," said Mr. Crawford, "to consideration of conservatism in dentistry and medical practice against that of premature and unnecessary action, based as it is on hasty judgment and tmwarranted ignorance of the principles of constitutional welfare. The dentist must develop a broader view of his duties and responsibilities to his patient other than that of the repair of the ravages of dental caries or the extraction of teeth and their restoration. " Reckless Extraction " "Nature proves by experience her protest against the reckless extraction of teeth. Dentists and physicians, owing to their enthusiasm regarding the theory of local infection, frequently advise the wholesale extraction of teeth, and in some cases of perfectly sound teeth at that, without any regard or thought for their patients' future or for the satisfactory mastication of their food following such practices." Continuing, the speaker said that neither were digestion after-dis-turbances nor nutrition taken into consideration, the symptoms, of which might well be further aggravated by ill-fitting or imperfect dentures, for technical skill was the only guarantee for perfection in denture construction. "How often does the physician encounter disappointment arising from miraculous cures reported as the result of wide extraction?" asked the speaker. "These cures in many cases are but temporary, and the unfortunate patients again find themselves on the doctor's doorstep. It seems to be the practice of some dentists and physicians to extract teeth first, and if the condition of which the patient complains does not disappear, to look for another cause of the trouble.