Goodbye, Toothache

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 352, 12 May 1928, Page 24

Goodbye, Toothache

Little Dental Imps Are Daunted By

Modern Treatment SHE wail of children, crying in the night. Frantic parents endeavouring to relieve the toothache.

Hot water bottles at 2 o’clock in the morning, painkiller or numberless other toothache remedies applied to the swollen cheeks of crying children. That is the dismal picture which harried parents not so many years ago.

To-day, thanks to a splendid system initiated by the Government, toothache will soon become a nasty nightmare of the past. A trained staff of dental officers throughout the Dominion is preserving the teeth of the little ones and teaching them to walk the path of good health and happiness. From the depths of a dental chair at the Beresford Street School Johnny surveyed the clean, fresh clinic and chatted brightly with the two capable dental officers, Bliss D. L. McCrea and Miss L. M. Leslie. His attitude was that of thousands of other little school children throughout New Zealand. The horror of the dentist is a thing of the past; nowadays the tiny folk rather like to call —even though there is nothing wrong with their teeth. This free dental treatment has meant an improvement in the lieai of thousands of children. Their studies are no longer interfered with by dull and stifling aches, and the teachers have noticed a distinct difference in the children since the treatment came into force throughout the Dominion over seven years ago. Beresford Street is only one of the schools where the children receive attention, but it it one of tile largest dental clinics in Auckland, and the first to operate under the new Government scheme. Here, on an average, 10 children receive attention every day, including Saturday mornings. Every month 2,000 children in the Auckland Province are attended to by the School dental officers. No wonder the old horror of the chair and forceps has gone! The clinic is delightfully fresh aud airy. Bliss McCrea and Miss Leslie are like fairy godmothers in their smart white caps and overalls. There are pleasant pictures on the walls and charming little cards which remind the children that they must keep their mouths clean.

Miss McCrea explained that the dental officers begin with the children in the primers and continue with them until they reach the fourth standard,

after which the parents are expected to be able to pay for attention by a dentist. All treatment in the schools up to that period is free, though in some cases the school committees help with the cost of the clinics. Most of the cost is met by the tiealth Department..

Nothing, however, is done without the consent of the parents. Even though the treatment is free some of the parents, fortunately only a few, do not even bother to reply to the consent forms which are sent out, and consequently those children have to go on suffering. “The children benefit enormously,” said Miss McCrea. “It is nice to go through a school a second time—the children’s mouths are so clean and healthy. Some of them, when they come to us first, are in an appalling state, but when they have been told how to clean their mouths and to use brushes they are able to take care of themselves.”

If it were possible, one gathered that the dental officers would prevent the children from eating sweets. “Some of them eat chocolate even before they come to school,” Miss McCrea remarked. “In England, during the war. It was noticed that the children’s teeth improved, as they had to eat. harder food.

“If we find that the children here are not being supplied with brushes for their teeth, we send notices to the parents that the treatment will be discontinued, but that happens only rarely.”

Many of the parents are appreciative of what the dental officers have done for their children, and send small gifts. The children, too, offer their thanks. “I haven't had toothache since you first did me,” remarked a bright little lady to Miss McCrea last week. She had started at five, when she first went to school.

Miss McCrea was one of the first 35 dental officers to join the new service seven years ago. Miss Leslie joined IS months later. Both are fully qualified in their arduous and painstaking work, on which the health of future generations will rest.

“It is interesting and we like it,” they both said as they busily applied themselves to the work of preserving the teeth of two small children who had come for treatment. In the Auckland district alone there are 18 clinics at the various schools, and one travelling clinic which works through the smaller schools in the North. Next month two more clinics will be opened, one at Thames and one at Morriusville.

And the cost? What does it matter! Toothache will soon be unknown among the little ones and parents will sleep the night through without having to wake and apply homemade remedies to suffering children. And the sale of toothbrushes has gone up enormously.

she bobs her hair—this is her last sign of modernity. In many places in China it is disgraceful and dangerous for a woman to bob her hair, and even among the women of the Women’s Union of Hankow, the feminist organisation of the most revolutionary centre of China, only 2 per cent, of the members have shorn their locks.

Feet of natural size and short hair are only two symbols of a feminist uprising that is affecting profoundly the bases of Chinese social life. From time Immemorial Chinese women have been subject to the rule of husband and mother-in-law; unable to choose their own mates in marriage and ignored completely in the civic affairs _of their country. Then came the mission schools and the motion pictures, and the gospel of free womanhood and personal choice in marriage was widely spread. Girl students from Chinese colleges were educated in Europe and America and came hack to tell of thfe status of women in the West. Finally the Russian revolution with its emphasis upon feminism won some Chinese disciples.

The organised expression of this new woman's movement is the \\ omen’s Union of the Kuomritang, tile political party that controls the Chinese Nationalist movement. The Women’s Union was organised in 1925, before the death of the great Nationalist leader, Sun Yat-sen. It began as a series of progressive women’s clubs in Pekin and other cities of Northern China. Because It had a political as well as a social Programme, it was necessary for the women leaders to work secretly sometimes from prison cells, in the territory of the Northern war lords. The leaders were for the most part women of the educated classes, graduates of American colleges and those who had come in contact with Western countries.

Tile first battle for women’s freedom is taking place inside the Chinese family. Perhaps it will also be the last battle, because the present organisation of Chinese family life imposes more limitations upon

women’s freedom than any oilier institution. And family life in China is relatively more important to the Chinese girls than to the Western girl because the country Chinese girl has no offices, department stores or cinemas as avenues of escape. The new women have attacked first the Chinese attitude toward marriage and divorce. The slogan of the Women’s Union is; “Free marriage and divorce.” The exact meaning of that slogan can be learned at the headquarters of various women’s groups in Hankow and Wuchang. At the headquarters of the Women’s Union of Hupeh in Hankow one encounters great activity. Members stroll in—some in silk trousers, some in cotton, all in the tight-fitting high jackets with elbow sleeves that are characteristic of China. A few wear their hair bobbed, and, as a revolt against trousers, knee-length skirts Nearly all of them are blowing smoke rings from cigarettes. As a further expression of the new freedom they would need to stop smoking, for smoking in public has been as much a woman’s right as a man’s, both in China and Japan. The room echoes with chatter and laughter as girl volunteers address envelopes and send out posters. “What do you mean by free marriage and divorce?” was asked Miss Chiao Gun-tao, head of the propaganda department. Miss Chiao is of the bob-haired, Western gowned college degreed type of the new woman of China. (Continued on Page 25.)