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discomfort, is no longer tenable. The effects of Dental Sepsis are farreaching:
thus, while infection may remain localised to neighbouring
tissues, tonsils, etc., it may, by means of the blood stream equally reach
any part of the body and be the determining cause of such varied
conditions as skin affections, rheumatic infection, arthritis, dyspepsia,
pernicious anaemia or heart disease. Even congenital malformations,
due to injury of the placental blood vessels, may originate in a maternal
blood infection of dental origin.
It is not too much to say that Dental Sepsis is the commonest focal
infection, and responsible for much of the disability and disease of
adult life.
It cannot be too strongly stressed that periodical dental inspection
will do much to prevent such disability.
Such facilities are afforded in connection with the Maternity and
Child Welfare service, the London County Council school service and,
later, as an additional benefit for a section of the uninsured population.
Between school-leaving age and the age at which an insured person
becomes eligible for dental treatment under the National Health
Insurance Act, no provision for conservative dental treatment has been
made. This gap of five years (in future four-and-a-half years) coincides
with adolescent life when the incidence of dental caries is at its highest,
and the desirability of making provision for dental care at this period
is very obvious.