Lester Monroe Dipswich -- Man of the Century

As life-long subscribers to Time, it is no secret that we hold the editors of that magazine in the highest esteem. Whether they are expatiating on the threat to world peace by dissidents in East Timor or excoriating the incompetents of whatever administration is debasing the White House, they have our rapt attention every Monday when the arrival of the red-bordered publication stimulates our psyche to a healthy glow.

That they feel the same about us is evident each year. Halfway through our subscription, they commence ululating like a muezzin with anguish triggered by an unfounded suspicion that we might transfer our allegiance to the National Enquirer. They importune us to renew at rates ridiculously below the newsstand price and point out the perilous implications to our well-being should we miss an issue. With the distinct feeling that they are chagrined that our relationship should be tainted by anything so crass as a request for the pathetic $56.95 annual fee, we tick the little one-year renewal box so thoughtfully provided.

Inexplicable as parthenogenesis, then, was the announcement by the editors of Time of their choice for Man of the Century. Time claims the naming of Man of the Century is not necessarily an act of approbation, but simply indicates that person, who, for better or worse, has most significantly influenced society during the period. Personally, we are heartsick and chopfallen -- at a loss to fathom their reasons for ignoring the obvious choice of Lester Monroe Dipswich.

Surely, given the criteria above, Lester Dipswich qualifies in every respect for the title. No fusty academician, he, but a perky little toff with a penchant for research unparalleled since Wham-O’s work with hula-hoops. In 1953, while working on a formula to reduce the frangibility inherent in peanut brittle, Dipswich stumbled upon the serendipitous combination of chemicals that later, in concert with Michael Buonocore, became the basis for the revolution in dentistry that we know today as the "cash cow," or bonding. Historians are united in their contention that had adhesion dentistry been available prior to World War II, Adolf Hitler would have never unleashed his panzer divisions on Poland and France. He would have grinned up a Teutonic storm with his Dipswich-inspired porcelain veneers, lost that ridiculous rectangular mustache, and every day would have been Octoberfest in Munich.

Dr. Robert J. Nelsen is generally accepted as the inventor of the first commercially successful air turbine, a device that revolutionized dentistry to the point of rendering sounds above the 5,000-cycle range inaudible to busy practitioners. Little known is the role self-effacing Lester Dipswich played in development of the air turbine.

Recognizing the dilemma faced by dental professionals whose wrist hairs were constantly being entangled in the belt pulleys of the Doriot handpieces they used, he jury-rigged a new type of handpiece. It was the grandfather of the high speed instrument we use today during the brief periods it functions before sterilization renders it hors de combat along with the bacteria that are said to propagate within it.

Dipswich mated the turbo-charger from a war surplus Bell AirCobra with a compressor liberated from the submarine pens at Bremerhaven. The results were spectacular. He could reduce a first molar to its individual molecules in nine seconds flat at 250,000,000 rpm. Unfortunately, his prototype handpiece was the size of a Louisville Slugger. It took a crew of three to operate, and it shed the occasional turbine blade during test runs, leaving gaping apertures in the laboratory or one of the assistants. However, the concept was sound and the loss of hearing or a limb was a small price to pay for progress.

Despite his contributions to the technical side of dentistry, Dipswich remained largely unrecognized by the profession until the mid-’70s. His friendship with the chief justice of the Supreme Court blossomed after Lester modified the chief justice’s bicycle to preclude the judicial robes from catching in the sprockets. He soon had cozened the chief to eschew his traditional breakfast of Wheaties in favor of Grape-Nuts, which are neither grapes nor nuts, but little bits of a substance with a Brinnell rating rivaling that of anthracite.

Shortly thereafter, when the chief justice was in need of a dentist to care for a wayward cusp that proved less durable than his breakfast cereal, he turned to his friend Dipswich for a recommendation. Lester Dipswich’s catholic taste in literature had taken him from the brothers Marx (Karl and Groucho) through Keynesian economics to the point where he knew exactly what was wrong with the dental profession. Dentists, he averred, had put a stranglehold on themselves by insisting on some nebulous concept of "professionalism" and a constricting catalogue of ethics. This resulted in restraint of trade, unconscionable fees, and Wednesday afternoon golf dates.

Having captured the ear of the chief justice, Lester Dipswich was easily able to persuade the other eight justices that most of the dental profession’s precepts were self-serving, outmoded, and not in the best interests of the American people. The Federal Trade Commission made Dipswich poster boy for fair and lucrative practices, and before long we were enjoying the informative and colorful displays in the Yellow Pages and reveling in T.V. campaigns with toll-free numbers we had too long been denied. Shorn of the noisome restrictions formerly imposed on the profession, liberated dentists can now share, if they wish, the same essential nobility that accrues to lawyers, HMOs, and aluminum siding purveyors.

Small wonder, then, that we are puzzled by Time’s choice of the Man of the Century, when it is to Lester Monroe Dipswich that that designation so properly belongs.