Guinea Highlands Style

The Gentle Art of Dentistry—New Guinea Highlands Style

DENTISTRY is playing an important part in the medical work now being carried out in the Central Highlands of New Guinea.

Most casual visitors to the Highlands

area hind this hard to believe because after the betelnut-chewing coastal natives, they are amazed at the ap parently strong-looking white teeth that the Highlanders possess. However, ex perience has proved that the natives in these areas have as many dental ailments as their coastal cousins—if not more. It is an odd day, indeed, that goes by with out a medical assistant or missionary being approached by a native holding his swollen face in his hands.

The dental work being carried out is, in the main, in its most elementary form, as like most native peoples, the Highland patients never present themselves for treatment before the pain drives them to

it, and by that time, the tooth—or teeth— are so far gone that there is only one answer to the problem, and that is ex traction.

This apparently does not cause them the anxiety and nervous tension that is common in most European dental clinics.

Their main worry is to be rid of the of fending tooth, and should they suffer a little pain in the course of extraction, they are only too pleased to put up with it. In some cases—particularly on isolated mis sion stations where supplies are hard to get and harder to keep—no anaesthetic is given, and by all reports, there has never yet been a native patient refuse to have an aching tooth removed because of the lack of it.

The usual amenities of Southern dental clinics are missing up here. The dental surgery is usually in the open air with the patient squatting on an upturned box which serves as a dental chair—as shown

in photograph.—DAlKA.