BAD DENTISTS EVERYWHERE.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 November 1920, Page 5

BAD DENTISTS EVERYWHERE.

IMPROPER TREATMENT OF TEETH. WELLINGTON DENTIST'S VIEW. By Telegraph.—Press Association,

Wellington, Last Night. A Wellington dentist of high standing, interviewed today in reference to the Sydney cablegram anent dishonest dentistry, admitted regretfully that there were dentists practising in this country who did not do their work properly, and thereby encouraged the-destrue-tion of teeth. ' "I have frequently," he said, "taken out fillings only a few months old to find that the cavity had never been properly cleaned out. A dentist who does such work, if he knows anything about his work at ail, must know very well that a person so treated would have to return for extraction, or further treatment within six or eight months, and it is not surprising stich men as I refer to cannot do the work properly at the low prices they charge. When a tooth is to be filled, the utmost care should be taken to take away every speck. The cleaning out of the cavity is really the most important part of the work, as it, is on the thoroughness with which such work is done that the work stands. ''l have even had people come to me with bridges over teeA that have been split in the riveting process. The dentist concerned had not revealed to his patient that the tooth had been split, but went on patching it up with a makeshift bridge, nnd within six months the patient visited me to ascertain what was the matter with this tooth. Any dentist of any experience at all could quote examples of the slumming work done by cheap dentists who ruslv the work through and collect cash on the spot. It is such dentists, I suppose, that the writer of the paper at the Sydney congress referred to. The type is not confined to Svdnev; he is everywhere."