Eastman, Guggenheim, Teeth

Prime Minister Mussolini of Italy last week chewed on a bitter-sweet contract and said a sour thanks. The contract bore the signatures of his Ambassador to the U. S. Giacomo De Martino, and Deputy Amedeo Perna, Italian dentist-politician, and the level script of George Eastman, Kodak & film tycoon. It sweetly gave $1,000,000 to the Italian Government to build and equip a dental clinic in Rome. At the same time it bitterly implied the rottenness and crookedness of Italian children's teeth. And it hobbled the champing Mussolini to certain stout stipulations.

Mr. Eastman and Dr. Harvey Jacob Burkhart, director of the Rochester Dental Dispensary have the sole authority to select the architect, arrange the details of the interior and select the equipment for the clinic, all of which will be up to the best U. S. standards. For two years the Italian government must not interfere with the clinic without Mr. Eastman's or Dr. Burkhart's approval. That Government appoint an unselfish, intelligent director who for two months must study U. S. dental methods and clinics under Dr. Burkhart's direction. It must furnish funds to operate the clinic "in a first class manner perpetually, or so long as it is necessary to have such an institution in Rome."

These stipulations Mr. Eastman considered necessary to insure high dental standards in a country where care of the teeth has been grossly neglected.

The invidious asked why Mr. Eastman gave the clinic to Rome instead of to some U. S. city and pointed to Murry Guggenheim, copper tycoon, as a paragon. Mr. Guggenheim and his wife Leonie jointly gave $4,000,000 last summer to build free dental clinics in Manhattan (TIME, July 1). Last week Mr. & Mrs. Guggenheim purchased land for the Manhattan project.

Champions of Mr. Eastman could say that, like the Rockefellers, he is spreading his philanthropies internationally. Two years ago, when after his African camera-hunting trip he visited London as guest of Baron Riddell and Sir Philip Sassoon, Prince of Wales's crony, he saw that the city needed a first-rate U. S.-type dental clinic, he donated $1,300,000 as a "mark of affection and admiration for the British people."*

The London and Rome gifts last week brought Mr. Eastman a distinguished visitor, Dr. Florestan Aguilar, dentist to the Spanish royal family and president of the International Dental Federation, who like the Italian Ambassador traveled to Mr. Eastman's home at Rochester. Dr. Aguilar's visit presaged more Eastman dental clinics in Europe, the next one probably at Madrid.

* And, it can be said, of gratitude. From English technologists he received the information needed to perfect his first photographic films. The present head of the Eastman Kodak Co. research laboratories is Dr. Charles Edward Kenneth Mees, English-born, London-educated.