MUCH AS we may look to the preventive measures of the present and of the future to cut down the need for dental care in this country, the dental profession cannot escape responsibility for treatment. Any realistic public health approach to the problem of treatment makes it clear that manpower as now utilized by the dental profession here is totally inadequate to the task before it. We need only remind ourselves of the effort made by the Public Health Service about 10 years ago to turn figures for dental treatment needs in the United States at that time into man-hours and man-hours into men.1 It was estimated that 450,000 dentists would be needed to treat the accumulated dental needs of the country within a period of one year. If that objective were accomplished, it would then need 160,000 dentists working continuously to keep abreast of yearly increments in treatment need. These figures, of course, were set alongside that for the available dental manpower at the time, which was in the neighborhood of 80,000 dentists. Whatever minor changes may have occurred in these figures since 1945, when they were published, surely the main conclusion to be drawn from them has not changed, namely, that drastic changes must be made in the teamwork and efficiency of the American dentist if important progress is to be achieved in closing the gap between needed treatment and treatment rendered. An increase in the ratio of dentists to population is to be desired and strong efforts, of course, have been made in that direction in the past decade, but no appreciable success has been achieved. The growth of the American population has effectively checkmated all our efforts to increase the number of dentists in the country. The American dental profession is not noted for its teamwork. Less than 70 per cent of our dentists employ full-time assistants and less than 7 per cent employ full-time dental hygienists.2 Table 1 gives in round figures a comparison between the dental profession and the medical profession in the use of professionally trained assistants. A recent American Dental Association estimate of 84,000 practicing dentists 3 has been set against rough figures of 6,900 for dental hygienists and30,000 -for the laboratory men, giving a ratio of a little less than one to one-half. A 1955 figure has been taken for 208,000 active physicians and this is set against a 1953 figure of 335,000 for nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, x-ray technicians, dietitians, medical-social workers, and so forth.4 This gives a ratio in the medical profession of ap-