Civics and HealthAllen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Science
Civics and Health
Allen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Hygiene; Public health
1. The expensiveness of proper dentistry.
2. The untrustworthiness of cheap dental service and "painless"
dental parlors; the domination of the supply houses wishing to
sell instruments and other supplies.
3. The ethical objection to any kind of advertising or to work by
wholesale.
4. The lack of dispensaries.
5. The profit-making basis of dental education.
Additional reasons these for cleanliness that will make the dentist
serviceable for his knowledge rather than for his time and gold.
Good dentists really "come too high" for both the poor and the
comfortably situated. Families in New York City that have four or five
thousand dollars a year hesitate to go to a dentist whom they
thoroughly trust, because his time is worth more than they feel they
can afford to pay.
The "free-extraction" dental parlors undoubtedly are doing a vast
amount of harm. In every city are dental quacks that injure
wage-earning adults as much as soothing-sirup quacks injure babies.
Instead of teaching people to preserve their teeth, they extract, and
then, by dint of overpersuading by a pretty cashier hired for the
purpose, make a contract for a gold crown or a false set at an
exorbitant price. A reputable dentist has said that a dental parlor can
do more damage to the welfare of the race in a few months than a
well-intentioned man in the profession can repair in a lifetime. Its
question is not, What can I do for this patient? but What is there in
this mouth for me? Many "parlors" never expect to see the same person
twice, because they do not make him comfortable or gain his confidence;
they put a filling in on top of decayed matter or even diseased pulp;
put in plates and bridges that do not fit; charge more than the
examination at first leads one to expect; refuse to correct mistakes;
deny having ever seen the patient before. Yet true and severe as this
arraignment is, many of these parlors, with their liveried "runners
in," are doing an educational service not otherwise provided; it is
conceivable that in many cities they are doing less harm by their
malpractice than well-intentioned men in the profession by neglect of
public needs or by failure to organize facilities for meeting those
needs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account