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Show oo MP LEWIS IIS DENTALHOSPITAL Many Ills of Body Due to Bad Teeth and Soldiers Are Promptly Cared For. CAMP LEWIS, TACOMA, WASH., Oct. 8. No soldier at Camp Lewis need suffer with toothache longer than tho time it takes him to reach any one of a dozen infirmaries in camp or the base hospital. Dental surgeons are on duty night and day all over the camp and treatment may be had at any hour. Army officers appreciate the fact that many ills of tho body are due to bad teeth and from the lime a 'man enters the army until he is discharged his teeth are looked after. When ho first enters camp and goes to tho mustering mus-tering office for physical examination, the new recruit finds his mouth is the first thing looked at. If ho needs work done, a note is made by the dental surgeon who examines the tooth and later the new soldier finds himself called upon to report at one of tho two big dental laboratories. From that time on his teeth are examined at frequent fre-quent intervals. I Colonel C. It. Wolven, who is in 1 charzr of the flnnfnl rnrnc rocontlv compiled a record of treatments here. He found that in cloven months 29,627 teeth had been treated, '16.GS-1 sittings had been given, that 13,650 teeth had been extracted and 25,551 fillings had been made. Able Dentists Kept Busy. Colonel Wolven has been seventeen .j years in the army and has under him some of the most able dentists in the country,- he says. These men in most cases gave up large practices or turned their offices over to other men when the call camo for them to enter the army. Every class of work Is done except the use of gold in bridgework-or fillings. fill-ings. Plates take the place of bridges and in front, teeth porcelain is used instead of gold. There are many who believe the porcelain is the best fill-1 ing. In the main dental infirmary twenty dental surgeons aro employed constantly. con-stantly. This infirmary is equipped with more appliances than all but a few private dental offices in the country. coun-try. Here every appliance that has been found of service to the profession has been installed. In tho second infirmary in-firmary there are fifteen dental surgeons sur-geons and this, too, is fully equipped. To tho outsider who believes that treatment by an army dental surgeon would be of the roughest and most painful sort a trip through one of the infirmaries-would provo his mistake. If the case is particularly hard and liable lia-ble to be very painful gas or other anaesthetics aro given by men who do nothing else and are considered experts ex-perts In their profession by dentists all over the country. Neither is guess work permitted and dally X-rays are taken of patients to determine exactly where the trouble lies and what is the best treatment. DRAFTERS' GOOD TEETH. CAMP LEWIS, TACOMA, Wash., Oct. 8. Draft registrants called here from Montana, Idaho, Wyoming. Colorado, Colo-rado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and other inland states have better teeth than men from the coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California, according to data just compiled by Colonel C. H. Wolven, of the dental corps here. "Eighty-five per cent of all draft men brought hero need dental attention, atten-tion, and get it," said Colonel Wolven. "Ninety per cent of the men from th threo coast states need work, however, how-ever, against 80 per cent of those coming com-ing from Interior states." No reason for tho variance in the condition of the teeth of men from different sections, has been given. One theory is licit there is Eore lime end mineral in the water of the inland states and another that the shifting population of the large coast cities l i may cause men to become more neg-! (lectful than those living at permanent homes. . j ! TACOMA, Wash., Oct 8 Increasing the draft ages from 18 to 45 years has created so many problems in claims j for exemption and questions misunder-' .stood by registrants in the Todd shipyards ship-yards here that it has been found nec-' nec-' essary to establish a new department .with several employes who will do nothing but advise employes ot the (yards and look, out for their interests. ! nn |
