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school only 6 per cent. accepted. The highest percentage acceptances
of all individual schools comes from one block, Infants'
Department 54 per cent. Junior 58 per cent., and Senior Girls'
36 per cent. Boys show a greater reluctance to receiving treatment
than girls or else parental control is exercised more in the one sex
than the other.
"The importance of early treatment cannot be stressed too greatly.
The great loss of permanent teeth, chiefly first permanent molars,
the best masticator in the dentition, is due solely to early neglect
in receiving treatment."
Mr. L. W. Elmer, L.D.S., reports as follows:—
"It would be unfair for me, after the comparatively short period
during which I have devoted myself to work among the children of
Walthamstow, to have arrived at many very definite conclusions,
but even after such a short lapse of time there are, naturally, some
points to which I should like to refer.
"In the first place I should certainly like to say how much I
appreciate the organisation for the giving of appointments to those
requiring treatment.
"It is, perhaps, not always easy for those who have not had
experience of working in a Dental Clinic, or indeed in any dental
surgery, fully to realise what an important effect this proper
organisation of the work has upon both its quality and quantity,
but that it is of great importance, I am convinced, and it is for
this reason that I feel that I must refer to my pleasurable experience
of this admirable organisation which precludes much wastage of
time for parent, child, and Dental Surgeon alike.
"The proportion of those who consent to treatment is undoubtedly
low compared with those requiring it, but it is just as undoubtedly
increasing, and it will increase in proportion with the amount of
influence exerted by those who come into contact with the children
and also their parents. Consequently, I appreciate greatly the
interest and co-operation fo the teachers.
"It is they who can be of first assistance in combating the fear
of dental operations which is present in the minds, not of those
who have experienced them, as much as those to whom they are
an unknown, closed, and rather dreadful book. The nervous child
in a dental surgery is not the one who has attended regularly but
the one whose treatment is postponed until pain or ill-health compels
it. This latter is obviously less fitted to receive treatment without
being upset by it and, at the same time, is obviously the one
requiring more of it.