CHEAP AND NASTY

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160812, 20 November 1920, Page 3

CHEAP AND NASTY

THE DENTIST WHO DOESN'T.

(Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Nov. 18. A Wellington dentist of high standing, when interviewed to-day in reference to the Sydney cablegram anent dishonest dentistry, admitted regretfully that there were dentists practising in this country who did not do their work properly, and thereby encouraged the destruction of the teeth. “I have frequently,” he said, “taken out fillings only a few months old, to find that the cavity had never been properly cleaned out- The.dentist who does such work, if he knows anything about his work at alii must know very well that a person so treated would have to return for extraction or further treatment within six or eight months, and it is not surprising that such men as I refer to cannot do work properly at the low prices they charge. When a tooth is to be filled the utmost care should be taken to take away very speck. The cleaning out of the cavity is really the most important part of the work, as it is on the thoroughness with which such work is done that the work stands. I have even had people come to me with bridges over teeth that have been split in the riveting process. The dentist concerned had not revealed to his client that the tooth had been split, hut went on patching it up with a make-shift bridge,' and within six months the client had visited me to ascertain what was the matter with this tooth. Any dentist of any experience at all could quote examples of slummy work done by cheap dentists, who rush the work through and collect the cash on the spot. It is such dentists., I suppose, that the writer of the paper at the, Sydney Congress has referred to, and the type is not confined to Sydney—-he is everywhere.”