Northwestern University Dental School - Purple and Gold Yearbook (Evanston, IL)

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CLASS HISTORY ii: t f' ii 7 i-, ' v,,,..,.r..,.,- O K write a history of the class of 1902 is an undertaking CE? which might well stagger any man. X It is an undertaking f' historians, but as the editors of Purple and Gold have 1 which requires the efforts of a large staff of the ablest 3 x UQ' v been unsuccessful in their attempts to secure such a staff, owing to the fact that all historians of note are at pres- ent following the Bowers or the Bo-Xers in search of new material for early fo-rthco-ming editions of their works, they have been compelled to intrust this grea.t and massive work to a star of lesser magnitude, and it is with almost unconquerable fear of unjust criticism, to which historians are subjected, and with a faltering pen that I now record the triumphs and successes, the miseries and woes of this, the most illustrious class that has ever honored the Northwestern University Dental School with its presence. To understand fully the magnitude, power and greatness of our class it is necessary to- take a retrospective view of the history of our ancestors back as far as Adam and Eve, inclusive, to see how Eve in the eating of the forbidden fruit laid the first stone, as it were, in the foundation for a dental profession, for a fruit that would have such disastrous effects in other ways could not help affecting the teeth, and, though the eating was the source of much annoyance to Eve and her boon companion, they no doubt in their later years looked for- ward to the mighty pro-fession which they had made possible. To them we sincerely acknowledge our indebtedness and are proud to be able to point to such noble ancestry. In the generations which followed we find steady advancement in the pro-fessio-n, and, though our accounts are meager, we have enough to show that the tendency was constantly towards the class of 1902. III

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The foregoing constitutes the legendary period of dental hist-ory, but we now co-me to the true written history of our noble profession, the first account being of jacob, in Genesis xlix, 12, Hand his teeth white with milk. Iac-ob practiced upon children, especially the chil- dren of Israel, Israel being the only man in the country who could af- fordttchfe services o-f a private dentist to loo-k after his children's teeth, and for this reason most o-f his experience waswith the milk teeth, as he says in his account. And how appropriate, too, that the first practitioner of whom we have any account should make a specialty of the first teeth, leaving the more difficult operations upon the perma- nent teeth fo-r those of us who come later in the profession and have more experience. job, in xix, 2o, speaks o-f the skin of his teeth-, and from this we know that he made a specialty o-f skin diseases of the teeth. The members of this class do not hold to the theory of skin on the teeth, but that theory has many adherents, it is reported, among the seniors, quite a number o-f them claiming' to have used the skin of their teeth on which to get through their examinations, especially since tinted paper became the prevailing fashion. The nearest that any of our class have come to seeing skin on the teeth was when Ernest Freese returned from Indiana after his Christmas vacation. He reported having seen, at a distance, two cases of moss o-n the teeth. I I - Amos, in iv, 6, says: And I also- have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities. Amos was a scaler and itis evide-ntfrom his words, Hand I also, that he was not the only scaler of that time. He had opposition, and in o-rder to rea.p as rich a harvest- as was possible, he spent certain days in other cities than his native one, much as many of our dentists do to-day. Of course, being among the first scalers, his work would be much more difficult than that of a scaler now, because none of the people had had their teeth scaled 'since the time of Adam, and there were good, rich deposits there to be re- moved. ' Some people of to-day have not had their teeth scaled since then, but ,they are the exception and do not usually bo-ther the den- tist very much, I mean the practicing dentist-they go to a student. VVltl1fZCCl12lI'I.5ll1 the time for the man with one single specialty was over. I-Ie, in addition to cleaning-teeth, treated abscesses and the like, as we learn from Ze-ch. ix, 7: HI- will take away his blood out of his m-outh, and his abominations fro-m between his teeth. I-Ie II2 I l ' I