Chicago College of Dental Surgery - Dentos Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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FACULTY AND STAFF l..J'Z.'.1'. ' ' ' '..':.., ' I D I

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Harry Sicher, MD, DSC, came to Loyola in 1944, a neatly dressed 50 year old with flawless English and a lilting Viennese accent. His reputation as world renowned anatomist preceded him, he had in 1928 coauthored the standard Oral Anatomy text with Julius Tandler, and it wasn't until 1949 that the German text was translated into the English version we all have in our libraries. Harry was a teacher. Mature, polished, and experienced, he rarely used notes. He only liked to talk about what he knew well, and was not embarrassed when asked a question to answer I don't know. He never bluffed. But Harry knew a lot about anatomy. He would lecture and captivate students. He told jokes and frequent wise sayings: The greater the ignorance, the greater the arrogance. Try to see yourself, not as others see you, but as you see others. Many a stunted person lives by conceit and vanity, they need the protection of arrogance and the manure of flatteryf' Love is eternal, but it's object changes. If you were to ask Sicher what was on his mind, it would always be anatomy. A frustration of his was that conventions and study groups would ask him to lecture on the same subject year after year, especially about the TMJ. But people felt secure that if Sicher said so, it was true. At one convention, a discussion broke out and turned to Sicher's text on anatomy to resolve it. Finally Sicher stood up and said with disgust, lf you want to misquote me, at least misquote me correctly. He also hated the way practicing dentists always referred to the articulator to describe movement of the TMJ. They can't separate biology from mechanics! he would complain. But don't take Sicher for having anti-dental sentiment. He had high regard for s ome dentists. In fact, in Vienna, he taught anatomy to MD's who were pursuing dentistry as a specialty. Perhaps Harry's interest in oral anatomy began as a child. When he was quite small, he was sent to the long-bearded ENT for the nasty formality of having his tonsils removed. He sat on the doctor's lap, and the doctor, without anesthetic, took an instrument like a guillotine and with a quick snap removed the tonsillar tissue from one side of the oropharynx. The child yelped, ripped a fistful of hair from the doctor's beard, and bleeding, ran and hid under the table. llt's not known if the other tonsil was ever removed.j Sicher wasn't just an anatomist. He knew and loved music. and closed his office at noon to skip lunch and practice his violin. He was in charge of a local string quartet which would play concerts delighting audiences. But Sicher's music was not the limit of his interests. He understood ancient Greek and spoke lfluentlyj modern Greek, English, German, French, and Spanish, and he could understand Italian quite well. He was fascinated by biology and once confided that he just had to stay up all night to finish a book: Morgan's text on genetics. So gifted in many areas. Sicher could keep them all in compartments: to take out one or the other when he needed to and then put it back. All his interests had boundaries so he could enjoy them all. But there were things that Sicher had no time for. Math was boring to him and he never claimed any knowledge if he didn't feel competent to answer. Yet his flawless memory for detail never left him in areas of his strength. 14 X I Some of Sicher's most interesting past was during WWI when he was a medical officer in Montenegro. Once, he was half way to a medical call lon horsebackj when suddenly a military frail began around him. He couldn't decide whether to turn back or keep going. Finally, he decided, Since I started in this direction, l'll continue in it. Harry ended his military career by developing an infected finger which became a septicemia, plunging him into coma. He was sent home to Vienna to die, but he pulled through with a scarred finger, and scarred heart valves from bacterial endocarditis. Harry loved stories of mind over matter. Once he reported that a woman patient presented for extraction of a tooth, and since all extractions were done then under general anesthetic, Dr. Sicher explained to her that a mask would be placed over her nose and mouth, a few drops of anesthetic solution would be applied to the mask and then she would breathe deeply and sleep, feeling no pain. The mask was placed, but, surprisingly, before anesthetic was applied, the woman breathed deeply and feel into deep sleep. The tooth was extracted without anesthetic or pain. Harry was a teacher. He told other teachers this story. A military man retired and was walking home through the countryside, when he came upon an old barn, so he went inside. On one wall was a carefully drawn buIl's eye, but the man was distracted by other things in the barn. He pulled out his pistol and was shooting this way and that when a farmer stepped into the barn. lf you want to shoot, here's how to do it, said the farmer. Aim at the center of the buIl's eye. So, said Sicher, lf you want to teach, forget about all the surrounding material, aim to teach what is important and nothing else. Aim to hit the bull's eye.

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Fixed Prosthodontics . . . to teach the fundamental principles in the fabrication of crowns and fixed bridges i -e . I' -' i .iu ' -A H ..t: ia- W ' i :VIQ -N I 1 112 ! 'W' - Ei 5 t v act.ttc Dr. Paul Dinga, Department Chairman ls this case mounted? Dr. Clifford Zmick i'76j Drozdz, l told you to check with me firstll X ,Q of , fa , fl N l Dr. Steven Eckert ls it 7 pm already? ff X . I6 Dr. Aloysius Kleszynski 1722 'f Two units to anyone who can spell my - Dr. Boleslaw Mazur name. Ba-lon-ey ZZ Nxt.. T. I - . , , .-T H- 1. : Q if . L x Dr. Kawta Nakra Dr. Leon Yuan 1791 Dr. Irene Kyras Take a piece of meat iFredrich1 Just a little bit undercut. What kind of meat would be best?