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21
In October one of the whole-time Dental Staff from the
General Dental Service transferred to the School Dental Staff which
then became equivalent to 5 1/11th whole-time Dental Surgeons.
Mr. L. W. Elmer, Senior Dental Surgeon, submits the following
report:—
A feature of the year's work has been a large increase in
the number of parents who have brought their children to the
clinic, quite voluntarily, for regular inspection. A disadvantage
of this, hopeful as it is in demonstrating the increasing dental
"awareness" of the people, has been that it has not been found
possible to examine any large proportion of children at schools. It
would, however, be manifestly unfair to refuse treatment for the
children of these keen parents, and a dental inspection not followed
speedily by treatment is rather useless.
Referring to the statistical tables at the end of the report, the
1,840 children under the heading "Periodic Age Groups" were
those examined at schools. The 1,400 entered as 'Specials' are
those referred by teachers and school nurses with gross sepsis or
toothache, and were, in the main, needing extractions. It will be
noted that some 4,000 more children were actually treated than
were found to require treatment under these two headings. This
figure is accounted for by the children referred to in the first
paragraph, who should, perhaps, be rated as 'Specials.' On the
other hand, they were undoubtedly inspected periodically.
In view of the shortage of school dental officers due to the
demands of the general dental service, it is fortunate that the
"austerity" diet of the last ten years, together with the "supplementary"
diet of expectant mothers, has had at least one good
result.
The improvement of the teeth of the children noted during
the war years has continued. It would certainly appear that some
items of pre-war consumption, notably a plentiful supply of sweets
and sugar and the high extraction loaf, were doubtful luxuries,
and not so desirable as is popularly imagined. To offset this
improvement, malformation of the jaws and overcrowding of the
teeth seem to be more widespread than ever.
It has, unfortunately, not been possible to classify more fully
the operations undertaken during the year, but a very large proportion
of the permanent teeth extracted were for the relief of this
overcrowding and the majority of the 'other operations' on permanent
teeth refer to the fitting and adjusting of appliances for
the correction of irregularities. Among other methods, oral screws
were supplied, and this simple form of appliance shows, in my
opinion, a very fair promise of success in many cases of irregularity