DENTAL ASSOCIATION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2778, 24 May 1916, Page 9

DENTAL ASSOCIATION

ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING The eleventh annual meeting of members of the New Zealand Dental Association was opened, yesterday in the Masonic Hall. Mr. A. M. Carter, of Auckland, presided ,and there was an attendance of about 100 delegates. Tho conference is the first which has been held since 1913, the gatherings set down for 1911 and 1915 having been abandoned owing to the disturbed condition of affairs caused by tho war. In the course of his .presidential address, Mr. Carter said that tho tenor of his message to the conference must bo expressed in tho two words, "duty" and "unity." He proposed to consider duty from two aspects only—their duty to' themselves and their duty to tho nation at large. As individuals they owed a duty to the organisation to which they belonged, and it was a duty to themselves. not to forget.it. As au association they owed a duty to themselves to see that the riglits and privileges to which they were justly entitled were recognised and respected, whethor from a social, financial, or oven military standpoint. Having vindicated their right to receive their dues, of whatever form, and from_ whatever source, they mii6t emphasise that failure of recognition of this principle on the part of others must not deviate them from their line of action one iota. ■ ■ Dealing with the duty to the nation, the president said that at the present timo and in the near future three pressing problems faced them: (1) Dental service to recruits; (2) a satisfactory scheme to combat the deplorable dental conditions proved to exist among the young people of the Dominion; and (3) the furnishing, in the near future, of an. adequate supply of trained dentists. Regarding dental: service to the recruits, Mr. Carter said: "It is indisputable that from 25 per cent, to 35 per cent, of those presenting have been rejected or deferred on account of dental troubles, and that, were this condition not remedied, the help rendered by this Dominion to our nation: in its life and death struggle would bo 25 per cent, less than it otherwise would be, or, to put it moro plainly, we may state that no fewer. than 12,000 men out of every 60,000 aro Tendered, from this cause, unfit for military service. Can we afford it? And tliis condition of affairs is not likely to improve among those still coming forward." Proceeding, the president referred 'to what he called "the cry of the littlo children."' He 6aid that the war of nations would end, and in their hearts they knew that victory would be theirs, but in the dental disease so rampant in their' schools they had a more insidious foe, which is steadily sapping the vitality ond lowering the stamina of the national life. Had some effective plan been in vogue some ten or fifteen years ago for systematic and regular treatment of the children, nearly all the present difficulties of the dental recruiting problem, with the attendant cost and loss of time, would have been non-existent. "