CHILDREN'S TEETH

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 137, 6 December 1929, Page 12

CHILDREN'S TEETH

SCHOOL CLINICS PEAISED

PREVENTION OF CANCER

The Minister of Health, the Hon. A.. J. Stallworthy, has received the report which Mr. Sampson Handley, the senior surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital, submitted to the Grand Council of the British Empire Cancer Campaign following his visit to New Zealand in connection with the cancer research

campaign,

This notable authority on cancer makes special reference to the dental care of children in New Zealand, and includes in his report a complete description of the school dental clinics He recommends to the British authorities the inclusion of dental treatment m the national health insurance scheme as a practical measure of cancer prevention. x

May ± cail the attention of the orana Council," stated the report "to the manner in which New Zealank has soiyod a problem of public health which the Mother Country -has to face. -l rerer to the prevalence of dentalcaries in children of school age, undoubtedly one of the causes, alid peroaps the principal one, of the frc«ucaey of cancer in the mouth in later |re. Mouth cancer is very rarely seen in a mouth winch a dental surgeon would pass as clean.

''The duntal surgeon is the product <n; long training, and even if the body ot dental surgeons could .be increased it would be difficult to cope with the mabs of work awaiting it i n th _ schools The Head of "the dental *! paitment m the New Zealand Ministry n aa S t^t thCSe diffiCU^ iCS in a bold a«d -S S^ppSo^Ss^ =S^^ t -f-nrg being made by the British. Dental Asanee." BatioMl healtk iusur"