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the care of the clinic on leaving the Fourth Standard. It urges the desirability of consulting a private practitioner without delay, with a view to continuing regular dental supervision. There is room for a closer liaison at this point between the Service and the private practitioner, in order that a much larger proportion of ex-clinic patients might be encouraged to continue the habit of regular dental attention, to which they have been trained during a period of at least six years. It would go a long way towards bridging this gap if the parents as a whole had a better understanding of the real benefits to health arising from a sound and healthy dentition, and were able to see beyond the merely superficial benefits, such as freedom from pain. In this connection, it would not be inappropriate to quote the following words of Sir George Newman, Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education of England and Wales (" The Health of the School Child," published 1934) : " There is still great need of a wider appreciation among mothers and children, and indeed among the whole population, of the value of the care of the teeth in childhood, adolescence, and adult life. The loss of teeth is in itself a serious disadvantage, particularly in youth and also subsequently, but the process of decay which produces such loss entails an exceptional extension and degree of infection, local or general. Septic conditions in various parts of the body are in this way engendered, and are liable to lead to personal ill-health, and even to disease and mortality. The burden of disease and death due directly and indirectly to dental defect cannot be measured or estimated, but it is certainly one of the most prevalent of the causes of physical deterioration and incapacity. Dental disease is perhaps the most common of all physical defects among children."

Map illustrating the Organization of an "Area."

In this case the " area " (the whole of the portion within the square) comprises three " groups " (each shown within a circle), centred on Tapanui, Lawrence, and Roxburgh respectively. There is a clinic at each of these three centres, and the pupils of the schools underlined attend at the appropriate clinic for treatment, the dental nurse completing the treatment at the three centres twice each year. A separate Dental Clinic Committee is established for each group. The number of groups in an area depends on the size of the schools and also on geographical and other considerations. The centre where there are most patients is the main treatment centre (in this case Tapanui), and the others are graded as sub-bases.

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