View report page

45
is concerned. Dyspepsia, anæmia, headache, neuralgia, enlarged
tonsils, and adenoids are due in a measure—perhaps a considerable
measure—to the diseased condition of the teeth. These effects
are not operative only in children. It was stated that over 3,000
soldiers were invalided home from South Africa during the war
on account of the disabling effects of decaying teeth alone.
It may seem surprising in face of the extent of the evil and
far-reaching effects which follow, that more attempts should
not have been made to grapple with the problem. One reason
why the question was not faced by many authorities has been its
magnitude. It was felt to be impossible to deal with the whole
question, and it was difficult to decide how much should be done
and in what way it should be approached. The local education
authorities that did pioneer work on the question have had to
modify their plan of procedure, and the Board of Education warn
authorities now giving consideration to this question to put on
one side any idea of undertaking to grapple with the entire problem
of dental disease. The most, and indeed the best, that can be
done by such authorities is to make a beginning.
Fortunately at the present time, we have the experience of
many authorities, and some of the centres where dental treatment
is carried out have been visited. These centres were chosen as
representative of widely varying conditions and administration,
but while they differed among each other in detail, the most marked
feature was the consensus of opinion as to the main method of
attacking the problem. This uniformity had only been reached
after experiments on differing lines, a fact which increases the
importance of the final result.
Before dealing with what is done by different authorities, it
may be as well if we give, shortly, what are accepted as the causes
of dental caries. The total mass of dental disease can be
differentiated, so to speak, into its constituent parts, and the
reason why the problem is approached in a certain way, may
appear evident.