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Sterilizer.—This is an electric type and is used for boiling all
instruments after each operation.
A modified form of Bale's School Dental Clinic Card Index
System is used for keeping the records of examinations and
operations performed.
The object of dental treatment in a school clinic is to
promote the health of the children and thus increase their comfort
and well-being', that they may be able to take advantage of the
instruction given them. Another obvious benefit which necessarily
follows will be better attendance, as no child receiving proper and
regular dental attention need suffer from toothache so severely as
to warrant non-attendance at school.
In this way much time and trouble, and therefore money,
will be saved; and better, healthier individuals sent out to the
lasting benefit of the community.
Having briefly considered this subject from the point of view
of health, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is an educational
scheme and that good health is necessary to enable the
scholars to acquire the knowledge that is imparted to them.
We should also bear in mind the importance of children being
educated to appreciate the value of keeping their teeth and
mouths in a healthy condition for health's sake.
The practical value of learning to a person is greatly
diminished if the individual is not in good health, so that to
educate children to care for their teeth is of the first importance.
We will perhaps better realise the extreme importance of
keeping the mouth and teeth in a clean and healthy condition
when we consider the fact that the mouth is the "gateway" of
the body.
Everything that enters the alimentary tract passes through it,
and of necessity becomes contaminated unless the mouth and
teeth are kept thoroughly clean.
Of what use is it that such great care is taken (and very
rightly, too) to ensure that our food, milk, meat, bread, etc.,
should be pure, wholesome, and unadulterated, if all kinds of
filth and disease germs, by the million, are swallowed with each
mouthful at every meal, from a dirty mouth and diseased teeth?