DENTISTS AND THEIR PATIENTS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 46, 18 November 1920, Page 5

DENTISTS AND THEIR PATIENTS

'Br TeleisriiDh—Prcßs Association." Auckland, November 17. The cabled report of a paper read at the annual meeting uf the Australian Society of Dental Science alleging that 90 per cent, of dentists allowed decay to proceed as a source of future income was referred to-day to Mr. Nelson Mitchell, president of the New Zealand Dental Association. He said: "It is a wellknown fact that the keynote of the teachings of tho dental profession and tjie practice of reputablo dentists throughout the British Empire for tho last tteutyfive years had been prevention in the interest of public health. Treatment of advanced or neglected dental curies is of such an arduous and difficult nature that members of the profession arc always eager to treat disease in the initial stages, and with this object in view aro continually impressing their patients with the need of periodical examinations. Sucli statements as tlieso havo been heard before in connection with tho lawyer who foments strife and the medical man who keeps a patient sick for the reason of commercial gain, and it is to lie hoped that public opinion will be as little influenced by thii latest bogey as tho eitrov««Lat and prepoaterou* nature of the auggeitwin detiertft.