View report page

31
therefore, to regard such mouths as treated and sound, if only such defects as these were present.
Dr. Livingston concurred with me on this point. But if a temporary tooth was firm and useful,
and seemed likely to have a considerable period of life before it, then the presence of caries in
such a tooth even in a child of 11 or 12 excluded it from this category. Arrested caries in a tooth
was considered as the equivalent of a filled tooth, and did not exclude a child from this group.
This column was filled up, after the last inspections, by Miss Bennett from the record cards
at the Wick clinic. But in the controls this could not be ascertained, at any rate without much
difficulty. Prom the point of contrast, the date of last treatment has been ignored, though I
have tried to make some use of it as bearing on the results of treatment at the Wick clinic.
The object of the inspection was to see whether there was any difference between the children
treated at the Wick clinic compared with a control group treated at the Council's clinics. I do
not confine myself to the narrow point as to whether there was any difference which could be
ascribed solely to the activities of the dental hygienist at the Wick clinic, but broadly in regard to
the dental condition as a whole.
The first method of testing the data used was to see whether the number of children "treated
and sound" varied in the two groups. This means that both dentitions were sound. Now in
the age group from 6 to 9 the temporary dentition is the more important from the point of view
of function. From 9 to 11 the temporary teeth rapidly lessen in importance in proportion as they
become shed and are replaced by the premolars. From 12 onwards the value of the temporary
teeth in mastication is negligible. I have, therefore, dissected out from the figures those children
with permanent teeth sound, though with caries in the temporary teeth, and have made two
groupings of "treated and sound"; one with both dentitions sound, and the other with the
permanent teeth only sound. The value of this second group is slight in the earlier ages, but to
my mind important in the later age groups. Since the number of children in the age groups of
the Wick centre and the control group is not always comparable I have reduced the figures to
percentages.

It will be seen that testing the two groups of children by the "treated and sound" standard,
there is a decisive preponderance of such children in the Wick centre group which showed 41-3
per cent." treated and sound," as compared with 26 per cent, in the control group. The fact that
the number of the children in the two groups is not the same is perhaps unfortunate, but I doubt
whether it seriously affects the difference as expressed in percentages. When the age groups are
contrasted, it will be noted that this preponderance between the two sets of children is not
always the same. In some it is relatively slight while in the 11-year group there was actually a
larger number of "treated and sound of both dentitions and of permanent dentition only, in
Date of
last
treatment.
The examination
of the
data.