DENTAL CONFERENCE

Southland Times, Issue 19510, 9 May 1922, Page 6

DENTAL CONFERENCE

SITTING AT NELSON (Per United Press Association.) NELSON, May 8. The fifteenth annual New Zealand Dental Association conference opened this morning, about fifty delegates being present. They were welcomed by the Mayor. The conference is expected to last until Wednesday. In the course of his presidential address Mr E. P. Rishworth said that the Dentists Amendment Act of last session was a distinct advance on the Dental Act of 1908. The definition of practice of dentistry was clear and comprehensive, and there was no loophole for an unregistered person nor the illegal use of an unqualified assistant in dental surgery under the subterfuge of personal supervision. The institution of free clinics, State treatment of school children, and great advance of the oral hygiene movement were evidence of the awakening that was taking place to prevent the ravages of caries in the Dominion. During the past year there had been ample testimony of a keen and growing interest in the health of the mouth. The Public Health Department was carrying out a general health crusade on broad and sane lines, with special attention to the need of oral cleanliness. The Press was backing up the movement, and it was to the credit of the general dental practitioner of the country that he had done and was doing his part in helping the propaganda, and giving liberal practical assistance in hospital dental clinics. The dental profession must keep abreast of the times if they desired to be recognised as men of knowledge and sound education. Instances could be multiplied from personal experience of epidemic diseases being spread through homes and schools because proper attention to the cleanliness of the mouth had not been ,insisted on. If they wanted to get rid of the degenerate and improve the unfit they must aim at eradicating the focus of disease, for unquestionably the mouth in a dirty and neglected ‘state was responsible for a great deal of systematic disease. If the question were tackled' it would help to a higher standard of personal fitness and from the national point of view lessen the shocking loss of time at school and work through the evils of neglected teeth. The care of the teeth was important not only to the health of children but to their general development, and to neglect the source of disease very often had direct effect on the ills of adult life.

He went on to emphasise the necessity for attention to temporary or baby teeth, believing it to be of the first importance that parents should see to young children’s mouths to permit full and regular development of the permanent teeth so essential in the making of a "healthy and well-bal-anced man or woman. While every ethical dentist exerted all his skill to save serviceable, natural teeth, and to give all possible masticating efficiency in children or adults, there should be no hesitation in cases of oral sepsis in clearing up the mouth. As . the result of experience the conviction forced itself that all centres of infection must be extirpated, and radical treatment pursued by extraction was now being urged by the leading practitioners of the British Empire and America, where teeth were abscessed and badly broken down. Still it was difficult to convince great numbers of people that a well-kept mouth helped to make a healthy body and clear and active mentality. All knew how bad oral conditions were so often associated with backward children, and it was pleasing to observe the growth and improvement in those who had been properly treated. One of the most difficult problems facing them was to furnish dental treatment for all classes without the stigma of charity. He believed the time was not far distant when a State dental service would furnish free treatment, just as it now provided maternity and general hospital treatment, but they could not ignore the danger that the services now provided would be taken advantage of by persons who were able to pay dental fees instead of encroaching on the provision made for those who would otherwise neglect the care of their mouths. He expressed the whole-hearted approval of the effort put forth by the Director of Dental Hgyiene for simple, healthy feeding of young children and its bearing on the building up of a clean mouth and healthy digestive tract.