Testy Dentists

President Hoover vexed the convention of the American Dental Association at Washington last week by only greeting a few of them (see p. 13).* Also they were cross because they did not get the newspaper publicity which conventioneers expect. Partly that was not their fault. Prime Minister MacDonald's visit to Washington and two sensational stranglings filled Washington papers and clogged national press services. But the dentists themselves were also to blame. Enterprising organizations do not wait for reporters to attend their meetings. Good publicity committees send information, well prepared, to the newspapers. The dentists did not have one convention speech to give out. They preferred to horde them for printing in their own professional magazine during the coming months, when public interest in their work will be diffuse and weak.

Campaigning for next year's presidency was hardbitten. Dr. Percy Howe of Harvard Dental School ended his term last week. Dr. Robert Boyd Bogle of Nashville, president-elect last year, assumed the presidency. Who would be chosen president-elect? Army dentists and those who served in the Dental Corps during the War electioneered for Col. Robert T. Oliver of the Army Dental Corps. Others wanted Dr. Martin Dewey of Manhattan. Incoming President Bogle was so eagerly interested in such association politics that he was typically ungracious to those few reporters who wanted dental information for their readers. He is a big, bald man, ponderous in movement, pontifical in talk. Son of a doctor and one of the few U. S. dentists with a medical degree, he is a triple specialist -- exodontia (tooth-pulling), roentgenology (xray) and oral surgery. His dental constituents admire him for being on the staff of four Nashville hospitals, for working in his office 10 to 15 hours daily, for reading no books or magazines except those which "concern my work," for having "no time for civic interests or detective stories."

While the run of dentists tired themselves attending lectures, looking at exhibits, seeing Washington sights, buying tourist knicknacks for the folks at home, Dr. Bogle confabulated with henchmen. Candidate Dewey confabulated, also Candidate Oliver. After covert dickers the association elected the Army's Robert T. Oliver their president-elect for 1930-31. An able dental technician, President-Elect Oliver is, like almost all his colleagues, not an important scientist. Neither Who's Who in America nor American Men of Science recognizes him. Neither do these compilations recognize outgoing President Howe or incoming President Bogle.

While the convention itself was whirling through its program and politics, Roman Catholic members taxied across Washington to the new Georgetown (Roman Catholic) Dental School and formed, according to the suggestion of Cardinal O'Connell of Boston (TiME, Dec. 24, 1928), the National Guild of St. Apollonia. St. Apollonia had her teeth broken out of her mouth, for torture.*

*Had the dentists found the President in a better mood, they would have been interested, when he smiled, in his teeth. On the left side the upper molars are worn down, presumably by chewing pipes and cigars, to a peculiar slant which helped earn him his campaign sobriquet of "Beaver Man."

*Saint Apollonia is not to be confused with Sister Apollonia of Volaterra, whose "Wounds of Christ" stigmata emitted, instead of the usual violet scent, a fetid odor.