On This Day, 2 November 1917

Birmingham Daily Gazette

Friday 2 November 1917

THE IVORY CROSS

WHAT THE NATIONAL DENTAL AID HAS DONE.

Now that the War Office has taken the burden of providing dental treatment to soldiers and sailors out of the hands of charity, the Ivory Cross exists to supply dental treatment to soldiers in the home army, men of the mercantile marine, soldiers’ wives and children.

The founder and hon. secretary of the National Dental Aid Fund, to give the organisation a less picturesque title, Miss Fletcher, explaining the aims of the society to the surgeon dentists of Birmingham, said that it was a fixed principle of the society that nobody should benefit from the Ivory Cross who could otherwise pay for their own treatment, also that everybody who benefited should pay a subscription, however small.

Before the War Office became responsible for dental treatment in the Army over 15,000 recruits were supplied with teeth.