Milford chronicle., 1920-04-02
TEETH AND HEALTH
THE AIM OF THE PROFESSIONS
By r. ALLEN GRIFFITH, D. D. S


All medical work today is along the
lines Of preventive treatment and this
is where dentistry fits in, for there is
nothing more necessary to health
than clean mouth.
/ Both professions are trying to teach
the public TO keep well rather than at
tempting to cure diseases after they
have become established.
OF course we take care of those dis
eases that have already developed,
but We are also doing our best to teach
the public to put in force the many
preventive measures which the medi-
cal profession has scientifically work
ed out.
The Panama canal could never have
been built except for the medical
profession. Think what the great war
IN Europe would have been but for the
medical and dental professions. The
dental professions work consisted
mostly in keeping the men fit by TAX
ing care of their teetn and in treating
wounds in the head, which were very
prevalent. You would turn your head
away in horror from many a poor fell
low had not the dental surgeon been
able to rebuild his face.
Most people know something of
what the medical procession has done
TO relieve the horrors of war, but in
order that you may realize what war
was a few centuries ago, let us read
the description of the battle of Saint
Quentain, 1867, by Ambrose Pare, the
kings physician:
There were at lie Fere some gen
tlemen charged to find the body of NJ.
de Bois-Dauphin the elder, who had
been killed in battle They asked me
10 go with them to the camp to pick
him out, if we could, among the dead;
but it was not possible to recognize
him, the bodies being all for gone in
corruption and their faces changed.
We saw more than half a league
around us the earth all covered with
dead, and hardly stopped there be-
cause of the stencil of the dead men
and their horses, and so many blue
and green flies arose from them, bred
of the moisture of the bodies and the
heat of the sun.
1t was wonderful to hear them
buzzing, and where they settled they
infected the air and brought the
plague with them. Mon petit maistres. !
l wish you had been there with me.
to experience the smells and make
report thereof to them that were not
there.
Il was very weary of the place; /
prayed NJ. le Marechal to let me leave
it, and feared l should be i'll there.
for the wounded man stunk past all I
bearing and they died-nearly all
in spite of everything we did"
War is bad enough at best, hut the I
medical profession at least helped to .
make life bearable by simple santa
tion, and our wounded received the
best of care by both the physician and
he dentist.
Much of their work was preventive
md so it has come to pass that the
highest ideal of both professions in
he mitigation an elimination of dis
ease. We dentists should be interest
I'D in a system or method which has
,Or its object the prevention of den
al diseases. Not only because it is
he purpose and procedure to main
ain the teeth and mouth in a state of
health, but more so because the main
enance of mouth health precludes the /
possibility of the rise of secondary L
diseases, which menace not only the
health but the very life of the indiv-
dual.
Many of the most serious diseases /
,nown have been proven to be de-
,endent upon some local focus of in
ectiOn in the mouth.
Hunter says: 1T is my clinical ex-
erience that sepsis infection is with
ut exception the most prevalent in /
ectiOn operating in medicine and a .
lost important and prevalent cause
nd complication of many diseases" !
The aim of this column is to preach
le dangers of these foci of infection
l the mouth until the public is :
rought to a realization that it is (
ardly worth while to risk Bright's
isease for the sake of a front tooth.
It's further aim is to teach them I
ow to keep down too luxurient
rowth of bacteria within the mouth 2
} as to maintain high degree of re- I
stance to disease-producing bacter-
which is so desirable.
Good business is good advertising. 4
he columns of The Chronicle make
e best business investment.
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