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In addition to the above, treatment is available for all those who wish to take advantage of
the service and who are:—
(1) Employees of the Corporation
(2) Students at the City of London School, City of London School for Girls or the Guildhall School
of Music and Drama.
The latter treatment is provided under the National Health Service and this scheme is primarily
intended to assist those who would otherwise have to spend long hours away from home and study
in order to obtain dental attention.
Three months is not a long time in which to assess the dental state of those examined, but
even so, one factor emerged at once which gave cause for alarm and some despondency, this was
the amount of dental decay, treated and untreated, in the teeth of five year olds attending school
for the first time. The only redeeming feature was that a good proportion of the decayed teeth had
been restored with fillings.
What is the cause of this tremendous amount of tooth destruction in such young children?
At first sight it was thought to be mostly due to the present day very high consumption of confectionery,
ices and sweet drinks and of course a large proportion was, in fact, very possibly
due to this cause. However the presence of a substantial incidence of cavities in the front deciduous,
or first, teeth, gave the impression towards the end of the period under review that a
considerable percentage of the decay seen might be due to the habit, in certain areas, of giving
very small children concentrated orange juice and vitamin syrups in dummy feeders, so that the
teeth are exposed to a constant flow of concentrated syrupy liquids. The fact that this type and
amount of decay in five year olds is not seen in all sectors of the community lends support to
this impression.
The incidence of dental caries is far too high to accept with any degree of equanimity, and
measures to combat this must be seriously considered, and if possible implemented.
These are:—
(a) A reduction in the consumption of sweets and sticky carbohydrates between meals; human
nature and mass-media advertising being what they are, this is a long uphill task.
(b) An increased use of detergent foods to combat the effects of sweets etc.
(c) An improvement in oral hygiene by means of tooth brushing and rinsing.
All these can only be achieved by dental health education and although a good start has been
made in this field, much more remains to be done.
From the experience of some millions of people in other parts of the world - in some cases
for up to twenty years, it is apparent that the situation could be much improved by adjustment of
the fluoride content of drinking water to the ideal level. This appears to make the enamel of the
growing teeth much more resistant to decay, a resistance which remains in some degree throughout
life. On this account the Dental Officer hopes that children will not much longer be denied the
benefits of fluoridation which could relieve them of so much pain and disfigurement.
Adults. Again the period under review is too short to allow one to draw any conclusions,
except perhaps to say that while there appears to be no considerable reduction in the amount of
decay, the awareness of the need to have teeth restored and replaced by means of filling and
other techniques has improved enormously as compared with 1939 and again with 1948. This
indicates that the large amount of money and dental man-hours spent since the commencement of
the National Health Service are showing some results. These results are an indication only of the
colossal amount of treatment required to repair the ravages of dental decay. When the same amount
of time, money and energy, or even a small part of it, are spent on prevention we shall certainly
see a reduction in dental disease.
WELFARE SERVICES
NATIONAL ASSISTANCE ACT 1948 PART III.
Section 21 (i) (a)
This section relates to the provision of Residential Accommodation for persons who by
reason of age, infirmity or other circumstances are in need of care and attention which is not
otherwise available to them. In making such provision, the Act specifically precludes the Corporation
from providing health services which are specialist services or services of a kind normally
provided only on admission to a hospital.
The Corporation has 15 beds at 'Hillside' 129 St. Johns Way, N.19. on a 'sharing' basis with
other boroughs; the owning borough is the London Borough of Islington. Use is also made of beds
in homes managed by voluntary societies. The questionnaire and follow up work by the Health
and Welfare Officer has, however, shown that this provision is likely to be inadequate, and, in
any case, 'Hillside' is scheduled for run down and closure in 1973 the allocation of beds to the
City reducing annually until that time. The Corporation has under consideration its own arrangements
to provide residential accommodation for its own people.
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