Madam, - As a regular reader of Brendan McWilliams's Weather Eye, I was very interested in the column outlining the story of the effect of the wind on the sea (December 13th). He refers to the scale devised by Sir Francis Beaufort in 1806.
There has, however, been a further use of the Beaufort scale. In 1956 Prof A.L. Russell of Michigan University, himself a keen sailor, adapted the numbered scale for measuring gum disease using the system for scoring the degree of swelling of the gums.
This system was adopted by the World Health Organisation and is used in major epidemiological dental studies worldwide. Prof Russell came to Ireland in 1969/70 and a study was carried out on a selected sample of an Irish adult population.
The advantage of this periodontal index was its simplicity: it was based on observation of the gums and was painless. It has since been superseded in dental practice by more refined systems, but it is still very useful for large-scale epidemiological studies since it is simple, reliable and reproducible. - Yours, etc,
LOUIS BUCKLEY (Professor Emeritus), University Dental School and Hospital, Wilton, Cork.