The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1910-01-14
Dental Inspection Of Public School Children


professional service. Ii Is To our dis
credit that, in spite OF our boosted
supremacy in dental matters. we as
American dentists have done relatively
so little i'm this direction. Great Brit
ain and Europe have for years been
actively at work i'm securing the bene-
fits of dental attention for their public
school children. The cooperation of
the medical profession and of municip-
al authorities has been secured, and
the representative dental societies
have Systematically undertaken the
work of inspection of school children's
mouths and put into effective opera
ton satisfactory means OF treatment
The percentage of unclean and unsan-
itary mouths has been reduced by eff
clent instruction and by enforcing the
habitual use Of the tooth brush.
Not only has this movement for bet
ter dental conditions spread through
out Europe. but to the antipodes. In
1904 the Dental association of New
South Wales applied for and obtained
permission from the educational au-
| thorites to examine the teeth of
number of public school children in
that state. The Investigations extend
ed to school children of the poorer as
well as of the more well-to-do classes.
OF all the permanent teeth examined
(both seXes) II per cent were found to
be detective; the average number of
defective teeth was "A per boy and 5.2
per girl. Among the boys 30 per cent
were recorded as having clean mouths,
while among the girls 80 per cent of
clean mouths was noted, the others in
each case being recorded as fairly
clean" or dirty"
The figures given are based upon the
examination of "A total number of indi-
vidual teeth, and do not take into ac-
count the percentage of individuals
who were found to be free from carries
of the teeth. Such individuals are,
however, minor quantity. Reliable
English statistics show from various
examinations that the percentage of
school children i'm England having de-
cayed teeth varies from 75 to % per
cent. In Germany, out of twenty thou
sand children examined. % per cent
had dental carries. In Russia the figures
are the same. and in Italy between 80
and 100 per cent of school children eX-
amined at various times were found
to be suffering from dental carries.
Similar data have been collected i'm
I number of countries, whereas the
statistics for the United States are
meager, and i'm some cases unreliable.
1t is regrettable that we have remain
ed so long Indifferent to the import
ance of this subject we should have
| led I'm its investigation. The move
I ment has started in New England,
thanks to the remarkable work of the
Dental Hygiene council of Massachu-
sets. but this initial impulse should
not be permitted to exhaust itself i'm n
single effort. At the beginning of the
seasons work of society organization
and i'm the preparation of meeting pro-
grams the question of dental service
for public school children should re-
ceive its due share of consideration i'm
the deliberations of all of the dental
societies OF this country. Every dem
tai practitioner knows full well the
extent of physical disability that can
rise from LESSONS within the oral cavi-
ty especially when acute i'm character.
but by far the most important menace
to health which occurs from disordered
mouth conditions is that which arises
from septic infection and consequent
nutritional disturbances due primarily
to an unhygienic condition of the
mouth. Unsanitary oral conditions
due to Ignorance or carelessness or
both, can be corrected only by a cam
paign of education i'm which the dental
profession and the educational author
tiles must cooperate if satisfactory
results are to be achieved. 1t is easy
for the most ignorant to understand
that an acute attack of toothache will
act as source of disability to a school
child; it requires much painstaking
instruction to convince n fair propor-
ton of people of even average intelli-
gence that oral uncleanlness. the de-
structive action of carries. and irregu-
larities of the dentures. insofar as these
interfere with proper mastication. are
insidious factors which each i'm its
way undermines the health and con-
tributes toward the production of a de-