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priority could be afforded. Partly owing to staff problems (see
also School Dental Service Report) and partly pressure of backlog of established patients seeking treatment, M & C.W. sessions
were somewhat reduced. Although, as an impact on the community, the 779 visits made by children under 5 years of age (of
which 6% were emergencies) were insignificant, the fact that not
one tooth was extracted in nearly 800 attendances may serve
to sweeten the bitter pill of inadequacy. In this context, inadequacy. is not to be regarded as phlegmatic resignation but rather
as the result of a rise in confidence in a now firmly based reputation whereby a surfeit of parents, both of school and pre-school
children, have sought our acceptance of their offspring for dental
care and guidance.
Previous Annual Reports have rightly concerned themselves
with the paramount need for prevention. Today's dentist no more
resembles his "pulling" and "plumbing" predecessor in the
market-place than the modern surgeon bears to the bloodletting, surgeon-barber of yesteryear. All communities have an
undoubted responsibility to eradicate diseases of known and
avoidable causation and dental health is no more nor less than a
branch of "public health". Public dental health has been defined
as the "science and art of preventing and controlling dental
diseases and of promoting dental health through organised community effort" and it is indeed fortuitous that most dental diseases
are of simple causation. In the fight against dental disease,
therefore, application of disseminated knowledge demands little
community effort but offers considerable prospects of success.
As far as teeth of the average person are concerned, it is not
an over-simplification to say that the majority of oral disease is
due to the presence of infected "plaque". Plaque, variously described as "bacterial" or "dental" or "germ layer" or, even more
simply, as "dirt," is a film of soft yellow-white material directly
related in amount, extent and thickness to an individual's oral
hygiene. Basically, plaque consists of a "matrix", traces of food
and countless bacteria, which clings tenaciously to tooth surfaces;
it is not to be confused with food rests which can be removed
by water sprays or forceful rinsing. Without entering into a
dissertation on the actual disease process, it is known that accumulations of plaque on tooth surfaces or around gum margins pro-