New Britain herald. [microfilm reel] (New Britain, Conn.) 1890-1976, 1922-06-01
THE DENTAL CLINIC.


A rather remarkable thing hap
pened at the session of the common
council last evening, A special COM
mittee came in and reported that the
city needed dental clinic badly. All
agreed upon that, apparently. OF this
they were quite sure.
But the committee reported
through a competent spokesman as
well as through a formal document
that it did not favor the establishment
OF the clinic, and the appropriation of
$500 out of the emergency fund for
this was a matter which should be
put up TO the people at a meeting of
the city meeting board, presumably.
Perhaps the report would have been
adopted. Perhaps it would have been
decided that the proper procedure"
should be resorted to and the matter
decided by the people. Perhaps the
committee really believed that the city
meeting board would lay a tax to
meet the needed $4,000 for this pur-
pose. Perhaps the committee felt
that the city meeting board would be
more liberal than it, the committee,
felt it should be. And perhaps the
committee did not remember, at all,
the matter of the cuts in salaries
how the city meeting board took &C
ton which the commons council
deemed improper. because such action
seemed to mean lessening of taxes.
But the matter did not rest there
Others words than those of the COM
mittee report were spoken. The super
intendent of health suggested that
there would be little danger of having
the cost of the clinic 60 beyond what
the council wanted it to, because only
by action of the council could the
money come. He called attention to
the intimate connection between dis
lungs. He. whose only interest is in
preserving the health of men, women
and children of the city, showed how
the clinic which has been in opera
. ton through private endeavor, has
been patronized generally by people
sent 1t from the welfare organizations
of the city, the health nurse, as well
as pupils from the schools. He
showed the need of a clinic that
would be independent of school au-
thority.
i. Then Councilman Nair, speaking
logically, asked what good the city's
investment of $4,000 in a persons
services who should examine and note
the poor condition of patients teeth,
would do, if such person could not
afford to correct the affliction. He
mentioned cases which had come to
his notice where suffering child was
helpless, compelled to continue suffer-
ing, because a wise dentist refused to
pull an aching tooth, thus causing a
disagreement for life, but felt unable
to give the time necessary for the
long treatment to preserve the tooth.
He indicated that it was not Just to
ar1y 81 -
continually-a thing some of them
felt, at times, they were compelled to
do.
But 1t remained for the tuberculosis
nurse, Miss Logan, to present the case
in it's vital aspect She told of the
condition of the teeth of most of the
children over whom she and other
workers are concerned She quoted a
physician who examined the little
ones to be sent to the Fresh Air camp
last summer. What good did it do, he
asked, to feed the thin bodies of the
children, to give them a chance to
breathe fresh air, to put flesh on their
scarce covered bones-what good did
1t do to accomplish these things while
there was left in their mouths the
decaying breeding place of the ter
rible disease that is the terror of this
country?
The common council decided to
start the clinic. The common coun-
ci<decided that it might spend $4,000
from the emergency fund for this
purpose. And. it is believed, not the
members of the committee which re-
ported not to do this thing.