MUCH DENTAL DISEASE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22225, 27 September 1935, Page 14

MUCH DENTAL DISEASE

INCIDENCE IN DOMINION HEALTH EDUCATION NEEDED VIEWS OF PROFESSOR DODDS [by telegraph —own correspondent] NAPIER. Thursday The opinion that New Zealanders quite definitely, on the whole, have sufficiently bad teeth to warrant notice on a national scale, was expressed in an interview by Professor It. Bevan Dodds, D.D.S., dean of the dental school at tlio University of Otago, who is in Napier attending tlio annual conference of the New Zealand Dental Association. Dr. Dodds said New Zealanders, as a nation, had reputedly bad teeth, and it had even been said they had the worst teeth in the world. Dr. Dodds discussed New Zealand's need of organised health propaganda from the dental point of view, with the object of combating dental disease and raising generally the standard of tlio teeth of the people. "The only organised health propaganda from the dentpl point of view is that carried out by the State service through radio talks, and tlio individual instruction of pupils," said Dr. Dodds. "Individual practitioners undoubtedly do a lot of good in the way of preventive dentistry, some of them being enthusiasts in educational matters, but their rango is, of course, limited to their own patients. Organised Movement

"Tho matter of an organised movement in health propaganda has been very much before the dental profession for a number of years, but adequate organisation leading to concerted effort lias so far been the difficulty. Health propaganda can only be carried out successfully by mass attack; sporadic attempts are of little value in any national sense." Discussing the work of the dental school of Otago, Dr. Dodds remarked that the profession of dentistry still continued to be popular with the youth of the country. "That this is so," he said, "is evidenced by the fact that entrants to tho school havo steadily increased in number during tho last few years. Tho school is the national school for New Zealand, and it is the. largest and best-equipped in the Southern Hemisphere. Thero are some 125 students in attendance at present, most of them taking the New Zealand University degree of bachelor of dental surgery. This degree receives official recognition throughout the British Empire and from certain famous dental centres in other countries, such as the University of Pennsylvania. No Need for Restriction Dr. Dodds said the number of students had increased in a gradual manner. and there was no suggestion of any necessity for restriction, as had been found necessary with the number of students passing through the medical school at Otago. "As a matter of fact," he said, "the wastage in tho profession from such factors as death or retirement is just met adequately by the number of graduates, and dentistry is perhaps the only profession where there is to-day no overcrowding, due in some measure to the fact that from about 15)10 to 1020 comparatively few graduates went through the school, development being hindered and delayed bv the war."

The course, I)r. Dodds added, was one of four and a-half years' professional work, which was passed only by men rather above the average, the duration of tho course in most cases being from five to five and a-half years.