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I would state therefore that in my opinion not the least of the services rendered by your
Clinic is that it has established once and for all that given an efficient staff and a well organised
Clinic with a carefully maintained routine there is no reason why the practice of orthodontics
should not be introduced into any and every school throughout the land.
The establishment of such a nation wide service would, 1 am profoundly sure, represent
a definite step towards an improvement in National health and must therefore merit serious
attention on the part of the Board of Education.
The Consent of Authority.
There are two further aspects of clinic orthodontics on which considerable light has been
thrown during the pioneer work carried out at your Clinic.
I refer first to the importance which has been found to attach to the support or otherwise
on the part of the children's parents, and secondly to the reaction of those in authority (including
those most intimately concerned by virtue of parental authority) to the so-called " aesthetic
objection " to the practice of orthodontics.
At the outset it was quickly realised that the parents' attitude towards cases of malocclusion
was unfortunately one of comparative indifference, it being their firm belief that the cure of
such irregularities was best left to Nature.
Now lack of support and faith in orthodontic treatment on the part of parents is undoubtedly
one of the greatest hinderances which comes the way of exponents of this branch of
curative dentistry. It was therefore a source of much satisfaction when it was found that even
after the Clinic had been established only twelve months there was observable a distinct orientation
of outlook amongst the parents in the Borough.
To the lay mind many of the cures effected at the Clinic have been little short of spectacular
and no doubt this in itself has prompted the parents' recognition of and confidence in
the Orthodontic Section.
The barriers of prejudice and indifference which at first caused parents to withhold their
consent to examination have now been entirely broken down, and there is no longer present
any initial reason which delays the immediate and non-selective application of that preventative
treatment at which orthodontia aims.
The Aesthetic Aspect.
Opposition to the orthodontic school clinic (I refer now to the orthodontic clinics at every
state provided school in the country which I hope to see established under a National scheme)
sometimes takes the form of alleging that the orthodontist offers as his first contribution the
improvement of facial appearance rather than the promotion of a healthy mouth.
As you must know, 1 maintain that the correct view of orthodontics is that it sets out
first and foremost to ensure a clean and healthy denture for every child and relegates to a
secondary position the nevertheless important factor of facial appearance.
When one considers the manner in which malocclusion and irregularities predispose the
individual not only to dental disease but also to the numerous attendant ills liable to attack the
mouth breather, it certainly seems to me totally unnecessary to suggest that the dental profession
should profess a greater interest in the righting of facial deformities than in the prevention of
disease. Crowded teeth invite decay and therefore the primary concern of the orthodontist must
be to equip the child with a normal and hygienic denture; not until this is achieved should there
be entertained the idea of treatment for the removal of the undesirable handicaps imposed on
the unlucky patient by reason of malformed jaws. Attention to what I have termed the " commercial
dangers " of malocclusion must always come second to health.
It is admitted that employers of labour are giving more and more consideration to dental
hygiene, and rightly so. To those in authority both as parents and as education officers I would
say, therefore, that if employers can recognise the importance of the aesthetic aspect far be it
from those influencing control of the early life and condition of the child to enforce any unnecessary
objection to the removal of detrimental physio-psychological handicaps.
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