View report page

67
It is admitted that our treatment is still largely palliative; we are chiefly
curing oral disease, and prevention in toto is still far off. Year by year the small
fillings placed in permanent teeth increase in number, in spite of active parental
stubbornness against " stoppings." So does the dental surgeon keep the life-time
teeth sound, by preventing further spreading in the mouth of caries. By short
talks to assembled parents and children (especially the elder girls) the dental surgeons
attempt to point out the consequence of dental and oral disease ; and to instruct
in a right hygiene and a right diet, and they persuade individual parents to accept
treatment of their children. At the chair-side the instruction is continued. The
Council may rest assured that though in these years much, and more, palliative
treatment must be given, no opportunity is lost to instil the need for prevention
and preventive treatment, in fact to teach the London child to chew sound food
and keep clean his own teeth.
Mr. Sowden Hills, one of the Council's inspecting dental surgeons has completed
an investigation comprising a differential examination of the mouths of 6,968
children, of Jewish or English parentage. The results of this examination tabulated
and plotted show that the incidence of dental decay as between the two races of
children is not greatly different although it is well known that there are great differences
in diet. However, there is a marked divergence beginning at about the twelfth
year : the English boys showing an increase in the amount of decay, but the Jewish
boys showing a decrease. Boys of this age are just about to enter one of the great
periods of growth ; but, while of English boys, 35 per cent, have healthy mouths,
at thirteen the percentage is fallen to 27 per cent. Jewish boys at eleven have,
33 per cent, of them, healthy mouths; at thirteen they are practically stationary
with 32 per cent, of healthy mouths and teeth; Jewish girls show an increase in
oral health during these years, 42 per cent, being sound at 13 years. It is thought
these considerable differences, which later, accumulatively, must make for greater
health and comfort and efficiency may be attributed to the great differences between
the two races in diet and personal hygiene, as taught and governed by the parents.
The health of the leavers traced through their school career.
The children leaving school this year form the last group whose birth took
place before the war. It is therefore of some interest to pursue the method of
comparing the record of their inspection at various stages during their school life.
Some of the more striking particulars are given in the accompanying diagram in
which the progressive improvement in the health of these children while under the
care of the education authority is shown. The close similarity of the diagrammatic
representation of the incidence of enlarged tonsils and adenoid growths with that
of catarrhal lung disease suggests a close connection in origin between these conditions.
The excessive incidence of oral sepsis upon the younger age groups is associated
with the condition of decay in which the deciduous or milk teeth are so often found,
and the substitution among children of the method of suppuration for the natural
method of aseptic absorption in the shedding of these teeth. Vide diagram, p. 68.
Injurious effects of insufficient sleep.
More than one of the school doctors has remarked during the year upon the
" nervousness " of so many of the children. They assign this nervousness, varying
from mere restlessness, to actual chorea, to lack of restful sleep at night. Dr. John
Beadles, working in the south-eastern division, states: "Such cases often do not
get to sleep until a much later hour than is right; this may be due naturally to
other causes than nervous excitement at the time of going to bed ; but, whatever
the cause may be, this want of sleep reacts badly on the nervous stability of the child."
Dr. Mabel Russell, working in the schools of Chelsea, makes similar observations.
She finds that it is of less importance to ask how many hours the child spends in
Comparison
of English
and Jewish
children.