436 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 



as compared with the common use of articles of food which readily 

 undergo acid fermentation, and it is neglect to keep the mouth clean that 

 is chiefly responsible for the decay of teeth. 



As to suggestions for the prevention of decay and the preservation 

 of teeth, no doubt prophylaxis is the ideal object to aim at, but in the 

 meantime it must be the duty of those responsible for the bringing up of 

 children to deal with conditions now existing. In England the children 

 of the poorest — that is, those who are actually paupers — are in many 

 ways better off than those next above them in the social scale. The Poor- 

 law Guardians, who stand in loco jyctrentis, appear on the whole to recog- 

 nise their responsibilities to the children in regard to teeth ; for many 

 Boards of Guardians, and especially those in the London districts, have, 

 with the sanction of the Local Government Board, appointed dental 

 surgeons during the last decade, and much good has already resulted. 

 The systematic examination affords an opportunity for ari'anging to save 

 all teeth which can be treated, very many of them teeth of the first or 

 ' milk ' dentition ; it also discloses the shocking condition existing in a 

 large number of such mouths, due to broken-down, necrosed and septic 

 remains, which otherwise escape notice unless the child has an attack of 

 acute pain. 



The children in our public elementary schools are practically left 

 without conservative treatment, and so are in a much more neglected 

 state than^the poor-law children. Some of them, no doubt, obtain hospital 

 treatment, but probably only in the form of extraction. 



The Committee supports as emphatically as possible the recommenda- 

 tions of the Admiralty and War Office Inter-Departmental Committee, 

 endorsed by the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deteriora- 

 tion, viz. : — 



'1. That the teaching of the elements of hygiene should be made 

 compulsory in schools, and in this teaching the care of the teeth should 

 receive attention. 



' 2. That daily cleansing of the teeth should be enforced by parents 

 and teachers. 



' 3. That systematic examination of the teeth of children by competent 

 dentists employed by school authorities should be practised where pos- 

 sible, to prevent caries extending, to stop carious teeth, and to remedy 

 defects of the teeth.' 



The Committee further emphasise the great importance of making 

 more widely known the serious constitutional results arising from decayed 

 teeth. 



Children's Playtime and Leisure. 



Your Sub-Committee have pleasure in reporting that they have made 

 inquiries of America, Germany, France, and more exhaustively of Eng- 

 land, concerning the question of the amount of time left to children 

 for play and leisure during the school period of their life. 



The result of these inquiries enables your Sub-Committee to put the 

 following conclusions before you, and they have also tabulated the infor- 

 mation in correlated time-tables, which they append. 



In the case of America and Germany the information at their disposal 

 is not enough to be of much value. 



In France, they find that in two lyc(5es the average leisure of an 



