DENTISTS’ CONFERENCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18875, 30 May 1923, Page 9

DENTISTS’ CONFERENCE.

MR DAVIES’S PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. SOME INTERESTING FACTS. (Pee United Peess Association.) . '■ CHRISTCHURCH. May 29. About 100 members of the New Zealand Dental Association from alb parts o! the dominion assembled at Canterbury College Hall this morning, when'the Mayor (Mr J. A. Fleshed tendered them a civic reception. Mr O. V. Davies, L.D.S., of Otago Dental College, president of the association; was in the chair, and briefly welcomed the delegates. . Mr Davies then delivered bis presidential address, which exhaustively dealt with the; history of the profession from its earliest days, and traced die gradual evolution of various primitive processes for extraction down to the painless, efficient methodsv that are in vogue to-day. Continuing, he said., with regard -to the standard 1 of dentistry‘ at- the present time, that it had beeni found thah a of a’natomy, physiology, surgery, medicine, and metallurgy were essential, to modem treatment. The development of the X-ray had furnished invaluable diagnostio aid in the treatment of many affections, the cause of which might otherwise .be doubtful. For many years the dental profession bad been urging that sepsis in the mouth must affoot in a deleterious manner the health of the individual. As fair as the majority of medical men were concerned these suggestions fell on deal ears. Within recent years, however, there had been .a great awakening, and some had rushed to the other extreme, and put many troubles down to infection 1 from the teeth. ■ when .the latter were not the cause at all, and insisted,on their extraction. . In all cases; it is the 1 dentist who should be the judge as to whether the teeth should be extracted or Saved. Nevertheless, this campaign of oral infection is having a stimulating effect upon dentistry. It .is realised that to restore defective teeth to usefulness, and to prevent future trouble,, very great, care must !bo taken in filling operations. The delicate balance of nature was so much, a part and parcel of the health of the ,in- . dividual that to prevent dental troubles entirely it was obvious that the, standard, of health must be raised to normal, something that could not be done in a generation or two.- In the meantime much could.be done by prophylactics to improve ’ dental conditions now existing, apd along these lines a 8181+ has been made in several countries.