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A MERIC‘Xi dentists havt: made oral h!.gientt tbc world’s greatest health WI- tlnc+tb, since it has been found tha.t ‘70 per cent of all \bodily ailments are

caused by mouth and throat conditions. The world sends its dental st.udents to American dental colleges, because dental science in America leads that. of the world. America, however. is behind all other great nations in social securit) programs. although this country ha.3 not been entirely negligent.

Eighty per cent of the people of America are so poorly paid for their services that they cannot buy medicine or medical service or dental or surgical service. A large percentage of every industrialized country’s citizens is too poor to buy such service if the pcoplc. buy enough to eat in order to insure good health.

Fraternities, societies for insurance, burial societies, poor farms, hwpitals, public health departments, sewerage, sanitary departments, clinics, free or charity pract.ice, city physicians, state medical departments, trained nurses, Red (7ross service, medical clubs for paneling patients and doctors, group insurance by which stores and business and industrial organizations protect the families of employes in case of illness or dea.th, health and accident insurance, state ron- trol of injury and accident compensat,ion-these and many other forms of so- Gdized control of health conditions have already developed in America. And

the end is not yet. Three influent ial American dcn1ist.s. represent,ing different branches of dcn-

tistry, met recently to face the future. Before them were reports from investi- gations that. have been made in many of the European countries in which social security laws have operated for years. They freely admitted that doctors, dentists, surgeons, and nurses must give their services to people who cannot pay, but they were disturbed over the thought that laymen should be allowed t.o control the professional services or should administer clinics and health sctrvicc>.

They were also displeased with the money-making plans and poli&rs that. insurance companies would create for selfish ends. They foresaw that, these c+ompanies would be eage.r for health insurance and for professional srrvices to be under their control. This would mean a cheaper grade of service. It would mean, according to the conferees, that research work and advances in s&ncr would stop; that, as in Russia, doctors and laborers would be classed somewhat alike, and that the only way the profe&onal men eould hope for commensurate ineomc would be through such unseemly condurt ,a.% laborers have to resort to when t b(~y po on strike to obtain jusl iccl. It. \\a~ pointed out that. in RuGa

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physicians only recently were below engineers and ot.her overall workers and were paid less, but during t.hc past six months increwcs in pay have been granted to the professional n&n of that Soviet country. In America the professional men must not sit idly by and see the politicians put them in the plight that charac- terized Russia for so many years.

“We believe in socializing our services so as to make t.hem available for the 80 per cent of the underpaid population, ” said one of the spokesmen al the meeting, “but we want. to say by whom our services sha,ll bc controlled and directed. MJe have never withheld our services when people were too poor to pay us, and WC work gladly at the free clinics in the hospita.ls, but we do not want to see the insurance: companies get the thing sewed up so we will have no influence or power except through tht: methods used in other countries. If politicians think they can get the votes of the 80 per cent of the underpaid population by promising insurance schemes, they will, through the aid of in- surance lobbies, put us in a plight.

“The cheapest men will have the a.dvantage. The premium will always thereafter be placed on cheapness, and we shall lose much that we have gained in our scientific research. One dentist of the higher type these days will spend more time and do more work in his laboratory and will spend more on attend- ing summer schools, etc., than the iusurance companics are willing to pay for the entire time of such a man. The question will be, not how well can you do a job, but how quickly and how cheaply.”

The dentists a.nd the physicians are well represented by committees in Washington. They a.rc there to watch Congress. They know the President’s in- terest in the 80 per cent of the underpaid population, and they understand how easy it is to mislead those people. They are made to believe that the free health service is the ideal thing for them, and the professional men in opposing some features of the set-up arc not. fighting on the popular side of the question.

With t.he abuses that have grown up under the systems as heretofore tried, the professional men are fortified with arguments. They know how important it will bc to have la.ws that will discourage malingering, feigning illness, actual ill feelings, and consequent ill health. They know that a premium is put on the will to be sick rather t.han on the will to get well. They know that morbid states are thus created which should be avoided.

In other words, they are accustomed to see their patients eager to get well because it is expensive to be sick. They arc afraid of the condition which re- verses this. They know it is not best for people to find it easier and more profitable to be sick than to stay well and keep at work.

Dentists count themselves an inseparable part of t.he health-preserving force of this country, and their right to such claim is freely admitted by physicians. At one time, even in recent years, the profession of dentistry required little schooling, and dentists did not aspire t.o a part of the great medical science. They plugged teeth, pulled teeth, made artificial teeth, and that was thought to be all. Some men, however, realized that through t.he mouth most disease enters the system; therefore oral hygiene became the most important of all health sciences. Then dentists began to get a medical education first and a dental edu-

cation second, and they became specialists in some one or other branch +>t dentistry. They are proud of what. they have contributed to health and comfort in America. They foresee in t.he present agitation A threat to their continued advancement.. They now hold the first. plwe in t lw world’s est.wm itlId thq do not want to slip back.

They are joining with the physicians in demanding that in what,ever is done for the people who are too poor to pay for private treatment thaw propIt> must not be used as a pawn by scheming politicians.