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101
Dental Treatment
The fact that tubercle bacilli have been found frequently in
the pulps of teeth and also in the gingival pockets goes to
support the theory that cases of tubercular adenitis may owe their
origin to infected teeth, the infection travelling from the teeth
along the lymphatic vessels and becoming arrested in the cervical
glands
The maintenance of a high level of nutrition is one of the
primary aims in the treatment of Tuberculosis The teeth are an
important unit in the digestive system upon the adequacy of
which nutrition so largely depends The teeth in Tuberculous
patients are peculiarly liable to caries, possibly due to their
reduced calcium content, so that constant supervision by a dentist
is actually a necessary part of any scheme of treatment
It is essential that treatment for Tuberculous patients should
be carried out in easy stages, and that extraction of teeth for each
patient should be limited to two or three at the most at each
sitting In this way only is it possible for dental treatment to
be done efficiently without aggravating the patient's general
condition
Considering the difficulties under which dental treatment is
carried out, and in that patients when called up may not feel fit,
with the result that treatment has to be postponed for sometimes a
week or even longer, the increase in the number of treatments for
the year is very gratifying

No of Cases referred—30 No of Cases X-rayed—3
£3 15s 2d was received from patients for treatment