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

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HISTORY thetics LecU (7-207) Surgery Lect. (7-207) rosthetics w Bridge Clinic Surgical Prosthesis Lecu 10-11 (7-207) (8-Lab.) 10-12:45 ■rative Clinic sc. A, B, D dontics Clinic Sec. C Operative Clinic Sec. A, B, C • Pedodontics Clinic Sec. A The pre-game ceremonies began sometime in Sep- tember, 1957, with grand pep talks from distinguished members of the pre-clinical coaching staff. To many of the forty members of the team who suddenly found themselves at the kick-off of their chosen profession, these words at that time may have seemed to be unre- lated to a dental career. What did all this forthcoming study of kidney and liver cells have to do with a tooth- ache? Who cared about the anatomy of the gluteus maximus? (From a dental standpoint. ) At any rate, we tried power plays to get through microscopic anatomy but injuries ran rampant. Thanks to a good trainer and coach everyone survived with nothing more than badly bruised stratified squamous epithelium and protruding eyeballs. Many a ligament was torn in gross anatomy but fortunately the age of our opponents made it easy to score. We were playing the belly series at the right time but the head and neck plays may have served us better later in the game. The opposition was tough, however, and it kept throwing in such razzle-dazzlers as embryology, biochemistry, and some strange options such as dental anatomy, C and B, and operative, just to give us a hint of what was to come. During a couple of time-outs the coach sent in neuroanatomy and dental materials but our signals got crossed somewhere in the pons and the referee tossed in a gutta percha football. The first period ended with several of the boys stagger- ing from exhaustion brought on from breaking training and one was knocked so senseless he left to study Greek. All of us had heard from the shock troops who had played this game before that the second period was the roughest, toughest, and meanest, and anyone who let up for a minute would be carried out of the Dean ' s office on his burlew. It started out in typical fashion with broken down handpieces, centuries-old slides, and worn out Joe Dandys. Microbiology had us running laterally across the field so all we could do was punt and hang on. It was at this point that the other team used dirty tactics and completely ruined our cultures, not to men- tion the poor rabbits who gave up their carrots to prove virus pneumonia was intimately connected with caries. About midway in the second period the opponents pulled out all stops and hit the team with everything but Pierre Fauchard ' s denture in the form of pharma- cology. They even went so far as to call signals in some strange language at times. Our offense bogged down completely and our bodies were spewing out acetylcho- line instead of epinephrine, adrenergic nerves became cholinergic, smooth muscle became striated, and signals became completely botched up in the sympathetic cen- tral autonomics. 25

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NINETEEN HUNDRED SIXTY ONE THIRD TRIMESTER: February 27 - Ma y 19 (11 Week. — — 1 1 — i :

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Pathology came along about this time and we tesorted to drawing our plays on paper. The team split in a vote taken to determine who would be on the all-opponent team — coccidioidomycosis or tsutsu- gamushi fever. Brustein led the cheering in favor of the latter. Physiology gave us some insight into the func- tions of a nerve fiber and proved that a toothache is caused by a red-dogging sodium ion busting through center while the offensive potassium ion skirted the end. This apparently set up some sort of chain reaction which ended when everybody collided with the goal post in the cerebrum. A sudden downpour made everything a bit muddy toward the end of the first half and periodontology was sent in to clean cleats. At this point we took ten time-outs to determine the history, make, type, and shape of the shoe and on the last play we cleaned two cleats. Coach Arden and his staff showed us the funda- mentals of the bite wing formation with special empha- sis on the importance of a lateral position when the defense was in protrusive. The operative staff, led by head coach Cain, drilled us in the I, II, III, IV, and V formation plays and reiterated the necessity for prop- erly plugging holes in order to foil the state board referee. We were told that all the skull practice and scrimmaging with dummies would assure success in the field. The team heaved a great sigh of relief during the half as we counted noses and discovered only one cas- ualty. The third period found us running around in a circle but enjoying it immensely. Fumbles ran rampant but no one seemed to give a rubber dam except, per- haps, the patients. We sliced through guards, soldered a lot of mistakes, tore up a lot of turf, and occasionally exposed a quarterback, but somehow we scored a few points. Nervousness gave way to confidence but the backfield speed was still limited as we entered the fourth and final quarter. The coaches advised us ( or maybe it was rumors ) that we needed about 600 or more field goals in opera- tive and about 43 touchdowns in crown and bridge, plus an assortment of fancy plays in prosthetics. This added up to a lot of work with insufficient time, and to make matters worse, the commissioner ordered no work dur- ing time-outs. A 15 point penalty was invoked on all those found scrimmaging after hours. The fans found out that they had to pay a higher admission price for all this and while it did not affect the quality of play, it did dampen their enthusiasm and limit their numbers a bit. The team began to poop out around the middle of the last quarter and besides aching feet, the nerves be- came a little frazzled. Points were being scored all over the place and in the melee that followed the opponents threw in one last desperate defense — the long pin facing. And so it went — a tedious, difficult, frustrating, yet enjoyable four years. The scrimmage is over, the game is ahead. Let ' s play it as we were taught and the rewards will be great. ( £3 26 No, no, Cosgrove, I said hit the Ramus