Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery - Dental Columbian Yearbook (New York, NY)

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MOSES DIAMOND D.D.S. Assoc. Prof, of Dentistry Dental Anatomy JACOB ERDREICH D.M.D. Assist, in Dentistry HERBERT D. AYERS, A.B., D.D.S. Assist, in Dentistry :harles f. bodecker D.D.S. Professor of Dentistry Oral Histology I EDMUND APPLEBAUM D.D.S. Assist. Prof, of Dentistry 9 WILLIAM LEFKOWITZ D.D.S. Assistant in Dentistry

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which must be devoted to the technical training of a dentist. The general biological and medical background is developed as fully as may be con- sistent with the special requirements. Here lies a regrettable hiatus between the two schools, which time we hope will lessen or remove. Should the prevention of dental caries become an. established procedure comparable to the prevention of typhoid or smallpox, then may we hope to abandon filling operations and thus release the time occupied by that group of exacting techniques. While making due allowance, however, for the difficulties inherent to the growth of a new branch of medical science, let us consider what has been done and how we stand today as professional men. Prophecy, being both cheap and risky, is set aside in what I should like to say. Dentistry, forty years ago, was taught and practised as an isolated profession. An academic picture of the human body and of the biologic processes was an undergraduate requirement; but that was left behind with college days. The practitioner went about the treatment of diseased teeth and their supporting tissues in accordance with a highly developed me- chanical technique and an empirical and restricted system of therapy which reckoned only with local conditions, or with but slight regard for systemic implications. Such was the knowledge of the day. The familiar story of growth from that point of view to our present realization of what dental disease or health mean to the entire human organism need not be recited here. We now know that the competent dental practitioner must be a man of first-rate ability, who is trained in a wider diversity of knowledge and skills than the general medical man. His peculiar training makes him indeed a specialist; but in ways not required in the other medical specialties. He must have the digital skill of the surgeon, but the details of a foil filling or of reaming a root canal are more exacting and delicate than the work of the surgeon. He must have mechanical skill and a knowledge of en- gineering principles far beyond that of other specialists. He must be a creative artist, having an innate sense of esthetic principles — of color and form — a field quite remote from other medical work. Since dental caries is reckoned the most prevalent of human ailments, and the crippling effect of diseased teeth or the loss of teeth is universally recognized and acknowledged; since but twenty-five percent of the people of the United States at present receive dental treatment — and this country is far ahead of all others in such service — the magnitude of the opportunity and responsibility placed in the hands of the dental graduate today are very greai and very serious. We of this younger branch of the ancient art of healing have work of the first importance on our hands. Let us hope that a future historian will have good reason to place in the record the work of members of this, our graduating class of nineteen thirty-eight. Twenty

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Oral Pathology LESTER R. CAHN D.D.S. Assoc. Prof, of Dentistry HENRY A. BARTELS B.S., D.D.S. Assist. Prof, of Dentistry R. H. ALEXANDER B.S., D.D.S. Assistant in Dentistry Radiology HOUGHTON HOLLIDAY A.B., D.D.S. Professor of Dentistry EVALD LINDER Technician HARRY H. MULHAUS Technician