View report page

276
of children inspected per session allows for a greater degree of
accuracy and gives more opportunity for getting into personal
"contact" with each individual child. The total number of
children with healthy dentitions was 9,704. This figure represents
4,045 found healthy at dental inspections and 5,659 rendered
artificially sound as compared with 4,249 sound and 5,194 cured
last year.
Treatment.
Details of treatment show a steady increase in the amount of
work performed, especially on the conservative side. Every effort
is made to concentrate on the younger age-groups, so that they
may reap the maximum benefit from the scheme. Many of theae
have received treatment as pre-school cases and are proving excellent
patients.
As the facilities are increased every effort is being made to
give each child a more complete treatment, instead of the merely
" palliative " measures, that do little to improve permanently the
condition of the mouth. The above method of treatment is continually
stressed by the Board of Education as being one of the
chief conditions in the working of a satisfactory scheme.
Every precaution is taken to render operations as painless as
possible, and in so doing to banish the bogey of the Dentist's
Chair. It has been found that purely "wholesale" methods do
not obtain the desired effect and in many cases have only proved
an obstacle to further treatment.
Owing to the bad condition of the mouths found at inspections
a very large amount of time had to be devoted to each child, hence
the number for which work was done will be seen to be less than
the previous year. This was 7,614 as against 10,404 in 1937. The
number cured increased from 5,194 to 5,659, the aggregate of Treatment
sessions being 1,585 against 1,551 in 1937.
The ratio of inspection sessions to treatment sessions was 1:14.4
compared with 1:8 for the country as a whole.
Fillings in permanent teeth increased from 8,603 to 8,879;
fillings in temporary teeth numbered 949 compared with 923 the
previous year.
The number of fillings per 100 children treated has risen considerably
and stands at 120.9 compared with 91 in 1937.