DENTISTRY AND HEALTH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2587, 31 May 1923, Page 2

DENTISTRY AND HEALTH.

CONFERENCE IN CHRISTCHURCH.

Christchurch, Last Night.

About 100 members \>f the New Zealand Dental Association from all parts of the Dominion assembled in Canterbury College Hall this morning, when the Mayor, Mr Flesher, tendered them a civic reception. Mr O. V. Davies, L.D.S., of Otago Dental College, president of the Association, was in the chair, and briefly welcomed the delegates. Mi’ Davies then delivered his presidential address, which exhaustively dealt with the history of the profession from its earliest days and traced the gradual evolution of various primitive processes for extraction down to the painless, efficient methods that were in vogue to-day. In continuing, he said with regard to the standard of dentistry at the present time, that it had been found that a knowledge of anatomy, physiology, surgery’, medicine and metallurgy were essential to modern treatment. The development of the X-ray had furnished invaluable diagnostic aid in the treatment of many affections, ihe cause of which might otherwise be doubtful. For many years the dental profession had been urging that sepsis in the mouth must affect in a deleterious manner the health of the individual. As'far as iho majority of medical men were concerned, these suggestions fell on deaf ears. Within recent years, however, there had been a great awakeuing, and some had rushed to the other extreme, and put many troubles down to infection from teeth when the latter were not. On their extraction, in all cases, it is tlie dentist who should be the judge as to whether teeth should be extracted or saved. Nevertheless, this campaign of oral infection is having a stimulating,effect upon dentistry. It is realised that to restore defective teeth to usefulness, and to prevent future trouble, very great care must be taken in filling. The delicate balance of nature was so much part and parcel of the health of the individual that to prevent dental troubles entirely, it was obvious that the standard of health must be raised to normal —something that could not be done generation or two —but in the meantime, much could be done by prophylactics to improve the dental conditions now existing, and along these lines a start had been made in several countries.