AMERICAN DENTISTRY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22464, 7 July 1936, Page 11

AMERICAN DENTISTRY

TECHNICAL AND MEDICAL NEED FOR CORRELATION iu the opinion of Mr. E. G. Ellis, associate professor of dentistry at the University of Toronto, who is a through passenger for Sydney by the Niagara, which arrived from Vancouver yesterday, the advance made in Canada and the United States in the mechanical aspect of dentistry has greatly exceeded progress achieved in Great Britain. "From the mechanical standpoint, American dentists are well ahead in comparison with their overseas colleagues," said Mr. Ellis, "and in one sense, perhaps, American dentists have gono too far in this respect." While the study of technical dentistry had made tremendous strides in America, there had been a tendency to pay too little attention to the medical aspect. As a result, the general health of the people had probably sulTcred, for too much attention had been paid to technical matters, with a consequent effect on research into the relation of general health to the condition of the teeth. However, there were strong indications of a swing back to the study of the medical aspect, a reflection of this being a recent curriculum survey, involving a report of 500 pages, made by the Amalgamated Association of Dental Schools, dealing largely with the necessity for the correlation of the mechanical and medical aspects of dentistry. It appeared that the tendency to emphasise the technical side would be corrected within a few years.

Referring to the nenv desensitiser for use in dental cavity operations, which is claimed to banish much of the pain and discomfort of the dentist's drill. Mr. Ellis said it had not been the success that had been anticipated. It had worked well in some cases, but there was no certainty in the matter, and, in its present stage, , the desensitiser did not appear to have much of a future.