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

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Classes

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Class History There is undoubtedly one distinction that our class can claim . . . that ol being the oldest group of men ever graduated by any dental school anywhere. A- Murph) -aid back in 1947, the averagi of the class bv graduation time will be thirty. Well our four-time President was right and rates an A for Math and we wonder if he knew that bv 1951 there would be ten youngsters to cheer for six daddic.- as they reached out for the diplomas . . . or that the oldest offspring would be Bill Houser ' s daughter and that the youngest would be Murph s own recent addition . . . or that sixteen of the twenty-four of us would be married . . . or that four of us would be marked for Army and Air Force dentistry and that the rest of us would have to register for possible recapping bv our tall thin Uncle. Xot very pleasant to work over in the upstairs sawdust but it ' s part of our history and we ' re well used to taking the good with the bad after these four years . . . And tell me Dearie, do vou remember back in our first year that the upper classmen allayed our fears with comforting advice such as Histology? Easy! Just know the book! And then there was the joker who said Em- bryology? Final Exam? Don t worry . . . just read Dodds the night before, that ' s all! You ' ll be a long time forgetting Placer ' s clas- sic, But it was given to us confused in Fisology lecture. And how about the time Storella practically broke up a Neuroanatomy oral bv locating the Pons 28 mm below the foramen magnum? And you can ' t forget the afternoon in Dental Anatomy when Dicran heated the bow of the Bonwell articulator too hot and it practically burned its way through the red wax. roots, and crowns before he could grab it awav. And how everybody tried to help Murakami get caught up in Anatomy because he joined us a week late . . . and at the end of the second week he was helping us. Ah yes . . . the first year in dental school held a lot ol trial and tribulations but we weath- ered them and another birthdav saw us ensconsed in the Sophomore year. You recall that this was the year of Rosebury ' s live narrative on the 1 reponema Pallidum film and how you entered into the thunderous ap- plause when he finished. This was the year when lies lor Christmas became the chief topic ot pathologic conversation and time seems to have proved we made the right choice. And speaking ol Pathology, vou aren ' t soon going to forget Mali Boys Gorlin . . . and his tug at the collar, the business with the loose wristwatch. and the poke at sliding horn- rims. And then there was the elusive chirping from somewhere in the wall during Dental Materials and you couldn ' t help feel that it was mocking vou and that it belonged in that room of gadgets, and nowhere else. This was also the vear when Murphy mixed up a batch of amalgam and split it with Mura- kami only to be told bv an instructor that the mix he was condensing into a typodont tooth was terrible and that he should look over at Mura- kami ' s . . . that was the real McCoy!!! Probably the finest bit of pre-lecture motiva- tion during the second year belongs to Pharma- cology ' s Dr. Gellhorn when he told of the adver- tising of the insurance companies in England and the four slogans, such as from the cradle to the grave , pyramiding until you laughed so hard you had tears in vour eves? In September of 1949, we had arrived . . . we were assigned units on the clinic floor and what was more important, were assigned that first patient . . . remember that first rubber dam you applied and how vou jumped a foot every time the patient moved under the hand- piece and bur? Xow we were big clinicians . . . we were soon able to prepare, fill, and polish a class I amalgam (in seventeen or eighteen visits). And soon we were boiling right along making full dentures for selected patients . . . selected is a good word. One of our class was readv to take a Stansburv tracing and he prevailed upon Murakami to help him with the cheek retraction for the plas- 23