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

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CLASS HISTORY MEMORIES IN THE MAKING A senior class history usually recounts events that are still fresh in the memory of a graduating senior. But how are those experiences recalled in later years? In the future, when we reminisce about Dental School, our recollections of these past four years will be charged with even more humor and pathos than we sense today. Considering the tricks that the passing of time plays upon our minds, let ' s speculate on how our memories will re-create our days in Dental School: Things were pretty tough when I studied dentistry! That was back in the days before flouridation, so we had to drill the decay out of teeth! We had forty-two students in our freshman class. We were of different sizes, shapes, ages, and back- grounds. But soon we all had our microscopes, our dental jackets, and our anatomy dissecting kits (more or less) and were of common purpose: to make our four years in school a lot of fun. I won ' t pretend that we didn ' t work and study plenty. There were a few moments of professional training (about twenty- one hours a day). But our class was chock-full of personalities — or characters if you prefer — who made academic classes the arena for healthful sport. For example: Histology lab: A group near the end of the alphabet used the period for football practice. This was rather annoying, especially when they used my eyepiece for a pigskin. Biochem lab: Some joker put a padlock on my reagent drawer one day. So Tublin, my neighbor, says, If I were you I ' d count to three and if the wise guy didn ' t take the lock off, I ' d spill fuming sulphuric acid on the lock; that would teach him. After thanking Tublin for the idea, and counting to three, I start to pour the acid. While the bubbles are foaming Tublin asks me, Say, isn ' t that your own lock? It ' s funny how the early impressions stick. Even today, when I hear the name of a man who was in my class, I picture him at his position at a table in Gross Anatomy — or the adjacent table hockey lounge. It Occlusal Rest Opening the bite was in that ninth floor lounge that a sophomore once came up and warned us about the evils of weaseling. Our class was aroused, and we decided that no one would think of weaseling. So, like all previous classes, we weasled without thinking. In the sophomore year, teamwork was in the air. Full denture technique set-ups were on an assembly line: each man set up one tooth and passed the articu- lator to the next student. The same fellows who had played tricks on each other now left their wives and shared rooms near school! That was the year when the class ' personality was somewhat subdued by the faculty ' s personality. I took my seat in the pharmacology amphitheater and found a very big man perched on a table. His feet were swinging idly and he gestured with an unlit cigarette. A hushed silence fell on the class. We had heard about this man ' s speed of lecturing, and we were ready for an onslaught; finally the professor spoke : Anybody got a match? The fourteen students sitting in the first row almost dropped their fourteen pens as they frisked their pockets. Several matches were thrust forward. The very big man lit up and started on a really exciting subject: How to show the drug supply man to the door while thumbing through G G for the side actions of the drugs he ' s selling. Then we moved into specific drugs. Today we are going to discuss the sulfones. One of this group is called DDS. The chemical structure . . . As the Lecturer droned on, we daydreamed of our own DDS, a drug of unusual characteristics, one of which is its ability to exite the nervous system and raise the blood pressure. The DDS we knew belongs to a group of drugs sometimes called professional poisons. The route of adminstration, fate, and excretion of D.D.S. is easy to understand. D.D.S. is taken in through the Admissions Office, and soon is found circulating throughout the Medical System. Its concentration falls significantly after two years because some of it is

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CLINICAL STAFF Florence V. Moore Director of Clinics

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Third degree mobility broken down by the system and excreted by the Dean ' s Office. A serious and common side action of D.D.S. is its ulcerogenic effect. Then we awoke to the Lecturer ' s droll tones saying, There are seventeen minutes left this morning. I will take two minutes to introduce the movie we have set up to project. The movie will last nine minutes and forty-three seconds, and we will have five minutes and seventeen seconds left for questions. This movie is a very dramatic and clear picture of what D.D.S. does to the respiratory, circulatory, and nervous systems. O.K.? Let it roll. Bill. The projector was started. Some stalling, grinding, noises were heard, and the machine conked out. The professor darted to the front of the room. While the machine is being fixed, we ' ll have our question period — to save time. We thought, maybe a stethescope would help. When the projector rolled again, the picture ap- peared but the sound track was dead. The lecturer ' s voice boomed over the murmuring audience: Even though the narration is missing, the movie is a valuable, dramatic — Poing! The film snapped. Bill flicked the lights on, and started splicing . . . Reparative opera- tions continued as students began to leave the amphi- theater. Practically no one was left inside when we heard, even from the noisy hall, an irrepressible voice, There ' s still forty-two seconds . . . In Prosthetics, a compensating cure is one thing; in Bacteriology it is something else. One fine day (fine outside that is) forty-two sophomores sat in a Bact. lab beside forty-two blazing bunsen burners, eight large windows (kept tightly closed) and two instructors glar- ing fiery eyes upon them. What was it all about? Did we all flunk the examination? One instructor stood up front on a little platform and rolled his eyes at us from man to man. He kept his chin down low, as if confronted with something malignant, something sickening. The other instructor walked around the room, stopping at each student, glaring at him as if hoping the vile student would dis- solve under his stare, and whispered a number to him. The first instructor spoke: My colleague is giving you the grades of the examination. Now I just want to tell you that something must be wrong someplace! When the whole class leaves out the same question, when almost the whole class misunderstands the same ques- tion, when the instructors have to raise all the grades forty points so that a good percentage of you can pass (that is twenty percent of you), something must be wrong somewhere. • Yes, this was the compensating curve of Bacteri- ology. It compensated for our real performances. At the end of a tirade that was filled with omenous pauses and fearful inflections, the instructor changed his tone: Let me beg you all to ask questions. Please, have you any questions? But the unworthy, intractable students sat in silence. We just couldn ' t think of a question that met the instructor ' s criterion of a valid question — that is a question whose answer cannot be found in the general or medical library. Well, if you have no questions, we ' ll go on with the little demonstration we ' ve planned for you on the phenomenon called anaphylaxis. We couldn ' t get a guinea pig today, so would anyone like to volunteer? . . . And so we marched on. Basic Science went storming along. Pathology joined the passing parade and we got in step. A very friendly looking man with a crew cut stood before us: Wel- come to General Pathology. Every year questions come up, so let me clarify certain things from the start: First, we will be giving out some notes every session— about thirty pages at a time — to outline the subject of the following meeting. These notes are not a sub- stitute for Anderson ' s text. They may be longer, and more detailed than the text, but that are not a substi- tute for it. Secondly, remember this: the men in charge of this department welcome your suggestions. Sure enough, some suggestions cropped up. For ex- ample, one student wondered, Wouldn ' t it be better to look at the slides instead of drawing them? Sharpen this knife, doc! Whoops! '