PRIMITIVE AND MODERN DENTISTRY

Hokitika Guardian, 10 November 1930, Page 8

PRIMITIVE AND MODERN DENTISTRY

(Elith Burton in Auckland Star)

Speaking to the chairman of the school committee in a country town the other day, 1 was surprised to learn what a struggle they had to drag from the parents of the dental patients even a tiny subscription towards the upkeep of the clinic. “Of course,” he said, “the treatment is free, but the incidental expenses amount to about twenty-five pounds, and the committee has to see that this sum ir met. We send out circulars each year asking for even the smallest subscription, yet the greater number of parents take not the slightest notice. Some, of course, send five or ten shillings, otherwise f don’t know wlmt we would ' do. But what we would like would be for .each parent to contribute, even if it were only a shilling.” What a pity it seems that parents, for the greater part, don’t realise' what wonderful wbrk these clinics are doing. T remember only too well in the years gone by how fearfully neglected the teeth of young New Zealanders were, and how terribly boys and girls suffered from toothache ; and how often one saw girls of sixteen, and even younger, with sets of false teeth. When I lived on. a far-back farm I visited the nearest township after nights of agony from a decaying molar, to have an amateur draw it with an old-fashioned pair of forceps with rust stains very visible on tliem. It had become dusk and the man who was trying to do a good deed for a suffering girl of twelve had to call his little girl to hold a candle for him. The nerve of rnv tooth was exposed, and the out-of-date forceps kept slipping, and I had to take a breather in between to get ready for another agonising attempt. Between the second and third attempt T took longer to recover and the hard little daughter of the would-be dentist, holding the dripping candle, gave vent to her impatience. “"Well, dad, are you going to pull it or not, ’cos T’ve got to feed the calf?” (Yes, it came out at last with a fair-sized hit of gum adhering to its hooked prongs.) How different for children to-day at the dental clinic. A ’mother was tolling me of her little girl of eight who came home and said : “Mother T had three teeth out to-day and one bored with a funnv thing.” “And do you know,” said this mother, “I had been worrying myself il l thinking of taking Peggy to a dentist; she is such a nervous little thing, and there, she had gone all atone and had three teeth out without a. murmur. And she is so imr>ressed bv what the nurse said that T never need to remind her to clean her teeth now.” I was telling a, local dentist about it and he said : “Yes. that is the beauty of the clinic. The children go over in squads without anv nervous mothers to work them into a fever, and the fact that their mates are all in for it, too bucks them up no end.”