[Report 1942] / School Health Service, Leicestershire County.

  • Leicestershire (England). County Council. School Health Service.
Date:
1942
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1942] / School Health Service, Leicestershire County. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and the remainder were chosen to act as controls. The mineral saits were provided in tablet form and had the following composition: — Potassium citiate Calcium carbonate .. Potassium chloride .. Calcium phosphate .. sodium chloride Calcium citrate Magnesium sulphate Magnesium carbonate Manganese sulphate Iron citrate Potassium aluminate Sodium Silico-fluoride Potassium iodide 5 gr. 2 3 / 10 gr. 2 1/4 gr. 2 gr. 1 3/10 gr. 5/6 gr. 2/5 gr. 1/2 gr. 1 / 4 gr. 2/9 gr. 1/100 gr. 1/100 gr. 1/1000 gr. Care was taken to avoid any fallacy arising from the method of selecting children, who were simply taken in alphabetical order as their names appeared on the school register. The first 25 boys and 25 girls received the tablets. Each child in this group was provided with 100 tablets and the parents agreed to give one tablet per child each morning before breakfast until the supply was exhausted. It would have been impossible to administer the tablets during school hours and in any case, the parents would have to undertake this part of the experiment if it were proved beneficial to the children. Each child in both groups was examined before the course of treatment and again at the end of 16 weeks. Records were kept of the dental condition at each inspection. Both examinations were conducted by the same dental officer, and at the second examination he was unaware which children had taken the tablets and which were acting as controls. This method ruled out the possibility of the result being unconsciously biased either in favour of, or against the value of mineral salts. In some cases it was necessary to extract aching teeth during the period of the investigation but such extractions were not noted in the records to avoid a false estimate of the results. Four children left school before the final results were known but 96 com¬ pleted the course (48 having tablets and 48 controls). The results before and after treatment were as follows:—- Before Treatment. After Treatment. Mineral Control Mineral Control Condition of mouth. salts Group salts Group No. of sound permanent teeth ... 210 173 208 (+ 93) 157 ( + 80) No. of decayed permanent teeth 23 23 25 ( + 4) 39 (+ 7) No. of sound temporary teeth ... 415 542 343 449 No. of decayed temporary teeth 302 213 310 248 Total sound teeth 625 715 551 ( + 93) 596 ( + 80) Total decayed teeth 325 236 335 (+ 4) 287 (+ 7) Assessment of decay ... 648 460 535 488 Assessment of sepsis 15 13 3 11 Assessment of gingivitis 24 13 3 5 No. with progress caries ... 41 39 15 35 No. with arrested caries ... 5 2 32 13 No. with no caries 2 7 1 Nil Co-efficient of caries .682 .483 .573 .493 Explanation of table :— Decay, sepsis, gingivitis are assessed according to degree. 0=absence, l=slight, 2=moderate and 3=severe. With regard to decay, each tooth is considered separately. Results of the examination of all the children in each group were added together. The co-efficient of caries represents the total assessment of decay divided by the number of teeth present. The figures in brackets refer to teeth which had erupted during the course of the experiment.
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