1 This Monograph, published by the American Child Health Association (370 Seventh Avenue, New York City), appears to be intended as a contribution to the National Child Health Program now being developed under the guidance of the President of the United States. According to the Foreword (pp. vii-ix), the Monograph "is the third of the School Health Research Monographs in which are being presented the results of the School Health Study of the American Child Health Association.... When .... in 1926 Mr. Hoover, president of the American Child Health Association, suggested an investigation of school health programs, it was decided to make of this study an evaluation or measurement of the effectiveness of what was being done.... This third monograph is contributory to the development of an evaluation formula which may be applied to results.... for the purpose of determining the efficacy of one phase of the procedures which make up the school health program."-[Ed.]

2 The Oral Hygiene Committee of Greater New York consists of a total of seventeen representatives of nine local organizations, as follows: First District Dental Society (Manhattan and Bronx), Lillian Barkann, Waldo H. Mork, Jacob B. Schneer, Wallace T. Van Winkle,DwightR. Wilson; Second District Dental Society( Brooklyn, Queens, Richmond), Arthur J. Brennan, William M. Bums, Charles H. Dunlop, H. Shirley Dwyer, Harold S. Horton; Allied Dental Council, Morris B. Rubin; Eastern District Dental Society, Henry Spenadel; Harlem Dental Society, Joseph H. Kauffmann; Kings County Dental Society, Maurice William; Northern District Dental Society, Kannon Sheinman; Queens County Dental Society, Irving Spenadel; Dental Hygienists Association, Mrs. Helen C. MacNally; Executive Secretary, Clare Terwilliger. For about fifteen years, at monthly meetings, the Oral Hygiene Committee has been giving constructive attention to the advancement of preventive dentistry, and to the promotion of the public interests in oral health-service. Realizing the importance of the Sub-committee's report, but appreciating the fact that it would have a broader public significance if it merited approval by the official representatives of the whole dental profession in the United States, copies were submitted by the Oral Hygiene Committee to the seventeen members of the Board of Trustees of the American Dental Association in advance of their sessions in Denver, July 18-25, 1930. Related resolutions adopted by the American Dental Association, and other professional groups in session at Denver during the same period, in general agreement with the findings of the Oral Hygiene Committee, are published on pages 544-546.-[Ed.]

3 The intimation in the concluding paragraph of the Foreword of Monograph III, that the Monograph satisfactorily expresses representative dental knowledge and opinion, is not supported by the action of these national dental organizations.

4 Presented, at a special meeting of the Oral Hygiene Committee of Greater New York, on June 26, 1930, by the Sub-committee: H. Shirley Dwyer, Thaddeus P. Hyatt, William J. Gies, Kannon Sheinman, and Maurice William.

5 A study of teeth and dental arches of identical twins: Samuel Goldberg, D.D.S., M.S.D., L.D.S. Thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Dentistry, at Northwestern University, June 18, 1928. In an abstract of some of the work described in this dissertation, Dr. Goldberg wrote that the results suggest "that the heredity mechanism, by determining the position of pits and fissures, may affect the location of caries." Journal of Dental Research, 1929, ix, p. 274.

6 Presented, at a special meeting of the Oral Hygiene Committee of Greater New York, on August 4, 1930, by the Sub-committee named in footnote 4.

7 Whether these teeth contained enamel defects that were overlooked at the first examination and became carious before the second, cannot be determined, but, in 8 "0 K" molars that remained non-carious, 14 pits and fissures were noted at the second examination.

8 For molars having pits or fissures, the ratio of teeth that became carious to those that did not was approximately 9 to 1. For molars having no pit or fissure, the ratio of teeth that became carious to those that did not was approximately 1 to 1. Thus, the surfaces of the first permanent molars having pits or fissures were nine times more apt to decay than those having no pit or fissure.

9 Case 60 (age eleven), in Table 4, illustrates both progression in the size of pre-carious pits and fissures (as classified in the Monograph), and the tendency of pits and fissures to become cavities: two "OK" upper molars at the first examination had three occlusal defects at the second; two non-carious lower molars, having three occlusal and two buccal pre-carious defects at the first examination, acquired two occlusal cavities and two buccal cavities before the second.

School Health Research Monograph Number III,of the American Child Health Association,Entitled "Public Health Aspects of Dental Decay in Children

Abstract

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