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32
REPORT OF THE SCHOOL DENTAL SURGEON.
To the School Medical Officer.
I beg to present my report for the year ended December 31st.
1926.
The progress of dental treatment at the Municipal Clinic is
extremely encouraging. From the total of 7,550 children examined
in the nine schools in the area 3,736 were found to require treatment.
This represents a percentage of 49.48, a decrease of 20 per cent.
defective on the number in 1925. The number of parents accepting
treatment for their children has increased considerably, and the
percentage of children actually treated during the years 1924,
1925 and 1926, being 38.69 per cent., 52.36 per cent. and 63.3 per
cent. respectively. This amply justifies the reorganising of the
Clinic on a whole-time basis in that, since its institution, the
percentage of parents refusing Clinic treatment has been nearly
halved. There are still, however, only too many parents, as in all
areas, not sufficiently enlightened to realise that it is as much a
disgrace to allow a child to continue with a dirty mouth as with a
verminous head.
A disquieting feature of school inspection is the number of
entrants found with defective teeth—of 842 inspected children of
4 and 5, no less than 361 or 42.87 were found to require treatment.
This, in my opinion, may be accounted for to a great extent by
artificial feeding in infancy and faulty diet subsequently. Artificial
feeding only too often results in malformation of the soft bone of
the jaws with consequent misplacement of teeth on their eruption
leading to food lodgement and decay. With regard to diet in childhood
a noticeable feature of the inspection is the extraordinary
number of "mottled teeth" found in the area. This is thought
by many authorities to be due to lack of lime salts in the local
water supply, and this, in conjunction with neglect of fresh fruit
and vegetables and milk in diet, results in faulty formation of the
enamel covering the teeth thus rendering them more easily attacked
by decay.
The present cramped and none too clean clinic premises
naturally form a deterrent to the attendance of patients and are
distinctly discouraging to the staff.