Personalities

Dentists Famous in Other Fields

Malvin E. Ring, DDS, MLS

Copyright 2002 Journal of the California Dental Association.

The profession of dentistry has long attracted individuals who were often multitalented, achieving fame in fields other than dentistry, such as literature, business, sports, and politics. Several have been justly rewarded with worldwide recognition. Many of these outstanding individuals continued to practice their profession while carrying on their avocation, while others decided to devote their entire time to the pursuit of these interests. Nevertheless, many in the dental profession are unaware of their colleagues who have achieved fame in other fields. Only a very few of these outstanding dentists are discussed in this article.

The profession of dentistry has always attracted individuals who were standouts in other fields of endeavor as well as their chosen profession. Some stayed on as dentists and used their other skills as a hobby or a sideline. Some gave up the practice of dentistry entirely to devote all their time to the pursuit of their other love. This group of dentists is characterized by the late Professor Gardner Foley as "dental truants" in his fascinating book Foley’s Footnotes. In addition, there are those who almost became dentists, never fully finishing their studies, because the lure of another pursuit proved too great. Among these latter are the famous baseball manager Casey Stengel and Mark Spitz, who won more Olympic gold medals for swimming than anyone else.

Many famous individuals who practiced dentistry but left to follow another line of work have been frequently written about in both the professional and lay literature and are well-known to most of us. To list but a few, there are Paul Revere, who practiced in Boston for seven years; "Doc" Holliday who, after graduation from dental school, went out West for his health and became a celebrated gambler; and gunfighter Zane Grey, who became the most popular author of novels of the West and the frontier. And possibly somewhat less well-known but enormously influential was Dr. Adalbert J. Volck, an artist who achieved renown for his bitter and biting anti-Lincoln cartoons and his many newspaper drawings supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War.

This article, however, deals with dentists who achieved renown for excelling in an endeavor other than dentistry, but who are not generally known to the dental profession. There are many, many more than the author was able to include in this short article; to list them all and all their accomplishments would require a book.

The Political Arena

Dr. Cheddi Jagan, President of his Country

Born of East Indian parents in Guyana, Dr. Cheddi Jagan attended Queen’s College in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana. At that time, the country was a British Crown Colony, made up almost equally of Africans whose ancestors had been brought in as slaves to work the cotton plantations and East Indians who had come as indentured servants and ended up working the rice and sugar plantations.

When Jagan attended Queen’s College, he had as a classmate Clifton O. Dummett, who would later become one of the luminaries in the American dental profession (Figure 1). It was Dummett who influenced Jagan to join him at Northwestern University in the study of dentistry, and the two left for Chicago together. Because he was considered an "Oriental" instead of "black," Jagan was able to find lodging near the dental school. But his friend Dummett was refused by the white landlords and had to find a room in the black ghetto of Chicago, which entailed an hour’s travel each way to school. It was this blatant evidence of Jim Crow that turned Jagan into a fighter for equality for all peoples. In a letter to Dummett in 1942, he wrote "Now is the time for the Negro population to demand equality, and to see that the Atlantic Charter materialize and bear fruit at home. Now is the time for all suppressed and minority groups to demand not only theoretical but also practical equality, so that the common foe will be resisted by all on an equal footing. It is only in this light that the civil disobedience campaign of Gandhi can be viewed."

After graduation from Northwestern in 1942, Jagan was burning with a desire to bring independence from British rule to his homeland. In August 1943, he married a Chicago woman, Janet Rosenberg; and he and his new wife went to Guyana in 1943. Jagan then began the practice of dentistry in the capital city, Georgetown. He practiced there full time from 1943 to 1957 and part time thereafter. His wife was his dental assistant during the entire time.

He soon entered politics, quickly becoming leader of the People’s Progressive Party. He won his first victory in the first popular election, held in 1953. This was short-lived, however, because the British suspended the constitution, ousted his party on the grounds that it was intent on setting up a "Communist" government, and clapped Jagan into jail for six months. Nevertheless, four years later, still under British rule, a free election under a new constitution returned Jagan and his party to power. The British were eventually forced out of Guyana in May 1966.

By this time, the conservatives in the country united in an opposition party and challenged Jagan and won the election. However, when details of corruption on the part of the leaders of this opposition party became known, it was forced to adopt a new constitution in 1980. This called for the election of a president, and in 1992 Jagan was elected the first president of his native land. His death, at the age of 78, came in 1997; and the people elected his wife, Janet, to serve as president in place of her dentist-husband, the "Father of a Free Guyana."

Dr. James B. Edwards, Governor and Presidential Cabinet Member.

After earning his dental degree from the University of Louisville, Dr. James B. Edwards completed his graduate surgical training at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and then at the Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. Board-certified in oral surgery, Edwards set up practice in Charleston, S.C., becoming only the second certified oral surgeon to practice in the state (Figure 2)

He began his political career as chairman of his county’s Republican Party and soon attracted favorable attention of the state party officials.

He was elected in 1974 as the state’s first Republican governor since the days of Reconstruction; and although he proved to be a very popular governor, he was prevented from seeking a third term by the state constitution. In 1981, he was tapped by President Ronald Reagan to be a member of his cabinet as secretary of energy, a post he held till 1982.

He has garnered many honors from the dental profession, culminating with his receiving the American College of Dentists highest accolade, the William J. Gies Award in 2000.

Dr. Charles W. Norwood, Patients’ Advocate in Congress

The American people’s major advocate in Congress on all matters of health care is a dentist who was graduated from Georgetown University School of Dentistry in 1967, after having served as student body president during his senior year. Upon receiving his degree, Dr. Charles W. Norwood served in the Army Dental Corps and saw combat in Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne Brigade (Figure 3).

His 24 years of dental practice in Augusta, Ga., were marked as well with exceptional service to his profession, notably his role as president of the Georgia Dental Association in 1982-83 and as a member of the ADA House of Delegates in 1984-85. He achieved prominence in 2001 when he became an advocate in Congress for patients and staunchly insisted that a broader patients’ rights bill be adopted. President George W. Bush negotiated on this bill almost solely with Norwood and a favorable agreement was finally hammered out.

Dr. Bernard J. Cigrand, Father of "Flag Day"

On June 14, 1885, a 19-year-old teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in the tiny village of Waubeka, Wis., decided that the flag of the United States needed to be accorded more recognition as a symbol that unites the diverse elements of the nation. Himself the son of parents who had emigrated from Luxembourg, he decided to teach his students more about Old Glory. Thus on the 108th anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes as the official flag of the new nation by the Continental Congress, he put a small flag on his desk and instructed his students to write an essay telling what the flag meant to them.

This young teacher’s name was Bernard J. Cigrand, and he did not rest with that exercise. The following year, he appealed for a "Flag Birthday" in the pages of the Chicago newspaper, the Argus. This was only the beginning of a quest for a special holiday that he never gave up. He wrote countless articles in a variety of publications; and in 1894 he was instrumental in organizing the National American Flag Association, headquartered in Chicago, and was named its first president.

His personal life went on apace, in addition to his lecturing and teaching about the flag. He entered University Dental College -- later to become the dental school of Northwestern University in Chicago -- and received his DDS in 1888. In addition to establishing his practice in Chicago, he joined the faculty of his alma mater, but when the Columbian Dental School -- later to become the University of Illinois College of Dentistry -- was formed, he switched to that school. He was so highly esteemed that he served as dean from 1904 to 1906. He practiced with his son, Elroy, in the suburb of Aurora, until his death in 1932.

During all this time, he continued to work for the establishment of a Flag Day, a dream that finally culminated when President Woodrow Wilson established National Flag Day on June 14, 1916. This was carried further, however, when President Harry Truman in 1949 signed the law making observance of Flag Day a national holiday.

The village of Waubeka has only 500 residents. But on the second Sunday of June, it hosts an annual Flag Day festival that attracts more than 10,000 visitors who are thrilled by numerous bands, fireworks displays, and military activities. The little one-room schoolhouse is now listed on the register of historic places.

In 1985, the Postal Service issued a new stamp honoring the flag; and it chose for the first-day-of-issue sale one place: the little village of Waubeka, the birthplace of Cigrand, the "Father of Flag Day."

Arts And Literature

Dr. Karl J. Leone, World Authority on Faulkner

When the principal world conference about writer William Faulkner convenes annually in Mississippi, the attendees include scholars from all the major universities of the world. But it also includes a Staten Island, N.Y., dentist who ranks among the greatest as an authority on the renowned author. Dr. Karl J. Leone is always asked to deliver a key lecture on Faulkner. (Figure 4).

A native of Brooklyn, Leone entered the Army in the early days of World War II and soon found himself chosen for the Army specialized training program, which was instituted to ensure an adequate number of medical and dental practitioners to serve the civilian population after the war. He accordingly entered the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and was graduated with his dental degree in 1946. Setting up practice in his native Brooklyn, he eventually moved to Staten Island, where he confined his practice to the treatment of temporomandibular joint disorders.

His interest in Faulkner came by accident. He was browsing through a stack of books in a Greenwich Village used bookstore when he picked up the book Pylon by Faulkner, read a few pages, and bought it for a quarter. That is all it took for him to become hooked on the writer; and today he has a large and valuable collection of Faulkner’s writings, including first editions, signed copies, as well as numerous artifacts associated with the author’s life. Leone set for himself the task of learning all he could about Faulkner, and today he is considered one of America’s foremost authorities on the Nobel Prize-winning author.

Dr. William Green Turner, Famed Sculptor

The city of Newport, R.I., has long been a mecca for tourists; and one of that city’s most famous draws is the exceptionally heroic statue of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry of "Don’t Give Up the Ship" fame. It was during the battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812 that Perry, commanding a fleet of American ships, defeated a larger force of British warships and reported to the president "We have met the enemy, and they are ours."

Perry’s own flagship, the Lawrence, was so badly damaged that he had to leave it and transfer his command to another ship; but he carried with him the famous flag with those immortal words and flew it on this new ship’s mast. The sculpture shows Perry at that moment, the flag still furled and slung under his shoulder. The sculptor of this life-size bronze monument was Dr. William Green Turner, a graduate of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery (Figure 5).

Born in Newport in 1833, the son of a prominent physician, he had planned to study art, but was influenced by his family to become a dentist. Upon graduating from dental school in 1857 -- at the head of his class -- he began practice in New York City; but with the outbreak of the Civil War, he was among the first to offer his services and was enrolled in the Rhode Island Volunteers. He rose in the ranks, and by 1863 he had been made a captain. At the Battle of Chancellorville, he was so severely wounded that he was left on the field to die. Nevertheless, he recovered enough to return to his home.

After the war, he found that dentistry was too strenuous for the state of his health; and he decided to work in his first love, the field of art. He settled in Florence, Italy, in 1869, where he remained for 30 years. A student at the Academy of Fine Arts, he became a noted artist, ultimately producing a number of sculptures that were purchased by private collectors as well as major public collections.

When the citizens of Newport decided to commission a statue of Commodore Perry to stand in the center of town, they chose the hometown native, Turner. The statue was modeled and cast in Florence; and Turner returned to Newport in 1885 for the unveiling, but left again for Florence. He returned to Newport for good, however, in 1901, and remained there until his death in 1917.

Dr. Francois-Joseph Talma, France’s Greatest Actor

The greatest French actor of all time began his professional life as a dentist. He was one of 13 children and was born in Paris in 1763. His father, Michel had as a patron a wealthy English lord who helped him study dentistry and open a practice in London. Numerous newspaper notices of the day advertised the elder Talma’s skill at "curing all Disorders of the Teeth, and particularly remov[ing] all Scorbutic Humours." During this time, the young Francois-Joseph had remained in school in Paris; but when he turned 16, his father had him come to London to study dentistry with him.

Contrary to his father’s desires, the young man’s interest turned to the theater; and he secured the choice role as Othello. His acting was greatly acclaimed. Nevertheless, circumstances which we do not know caused him to give up the theater and return to Paris around 1781. His uncle, Philippe, his father’s older brother, also was practicing dentistry in Paris and took his young nephew on as an associate (Figure 6)

But the lure of the theater was too strong, and when the École Royale Dramatique was created in 1786, young Talma gave up dentistry and enrolled in the school where he studied with some of France’s leading thespians.

A close friend of the young Napoleon, Talma gained immeasurably when the former became emperor. It was at that time that his fortunes in the theater rose; and he soon was acclaimed as France’s greatest actor, a position he would hold until his death, probably of cancer, in 1826 at the age of 63. He is buried in the Pre Lachaise cemetery in Paris; and his grave is not only beautifully cared for to this day, but is visited daily by hundreds of theater enthusiasts.

Dr. Herbert Ferber, Sculptor of the Abstract

Born to a poor Jewish family in New York City in 1906, Herbert Ferber put himself through Columbia University’s School of Dental and Oral Surgery, receiving his degree in 1930.

In an interview with the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Ferber said that while he was still a dental student a teacher encouraged him to have what he thought was an extra-dental interest. So, after a year of dental school, he began studying at night at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design, which was loosely affiliated with the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. He had wanted to study at the Art Students League, but the tuition was prohibitively high for him.

He began with sculptures in wood and stone, soon going on to the making of massive figures in these media. Upon graduation from dental school, he received two conflicting offers: an instructorship at the school and a fellowship at the renowned Tiffany Foundation. He chose to study at the foundation for several years, in the process meeting such luminaries of the modern art movement as Mark Rothko and Chaim Gross. After two years, he returned to Columbia and joined the dental faculty.

However, his fame as a modern abstractionist sculptor far outshone his dental career. He switched from figure modeling and made huge metal abstract sculptures. He also did a fair amount of painting of abstracts. His works are in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City as well as in private collections.

Ferber died in New York City in 1991 at the age of 85.

Inventions

Dr. Josephus Requa, Inventor of the First Machine Gun

Dr. Josephus Requa practiced in the Wilder Building in Rochester, N.Y.; and during his professional career he invented the first practical machine gun in 1861. He and a gunsmith, William Billinghurst, built a prototype at the latter’s gun shop on 41 Main St., Rochester. It consisted of 25 rifle barrels mounted horizontally on a two-wheel wagon and weighed 500 pounds. A clip held 25 .52-caliber bullets. They were loaded at one time and fired with a single long percussion cap. Three soldiers could reload seven times a minute, thus getting off 175 shots in one minute.

Although Gen. James W. Ripley, chief of ordnance procurement, was not interested, claiming his men could shoot "fast enough," Requa sought an audience with President Abraham Lincoln, who was very impressed with the gun and, on his own initiative, ordered tests to be made.

Patent No. 36,448 was issued to Requa and Billinghurst on Sept. 16, 1862; and the new gun was pressed into service on the very next day at the bloody battle of Antietam. Unfortunately, although the guns were delivered to the battlefield in time, the ship carrying the bullets had been sunk by the Confederates as it made its way to the battle. However, the guns did see action at the battle of Charleston in 1863 and at Petersburg and Cold Harbor in 1864. Requa never did receive proper recognition for his contribution. His gun, the first machine gun, was soon supplanted by the more successful hand-cranked Gatling gun, which could fire 350 rounds a minute.

Dr. Edward Maynard, Inventor of the Gun That Almost Won the Civil War.

Dr. Edward Maynard practiced dentistry in Washington, D.C., in the early years of the 19th century. With a strongly inventive mind, he was not satisfied with the limitations of dentistry. From an early age, he had a strong interest in guns and the way they were fired. His first invention in this field was the Maynard Tape Primer Lock, patented in 1845. This supplanted the easily dropped copper percussion cap and was adapted for use in a wide array of pistols, rifles, and shotguns. Manufactured by the Massachusetts Arms Company, this invention alone brought him more than $75,000 in royalties, an enormous sum in those days.

Although he secured many additional patents in the succeeding years, his greatest contribution was the breech-loading carbine, which he patented in 1859. The usual practice in loading a rifle at that time was to ram a linen packet full of powder down the barrel and then ram the ball to place with a ramrod. It was then ignited with a percussion cap at the breech. Maynard not only invented a much more practical percussion cap, but a brass cartridge as well, one that could be loaded into the rifle at the breech end.

The Navy conducted tests of this new rifle in 1859, with astounding results: of 250 shots fired at 500 yards, all hit the target, 80 percent of them within a four-foot square. It fired 12 rounds a minute, and 562 rounds were fired before the barrel needed cleaning.

The Civil War brought large orders from the Union army for this amazing new rifle; and by the time the war was over, more than 200,000 carbines were in the hands of Union soldiers who had used more than 2 million of Maynard’s cartridges.

After the war, the rifle continued in production for use by hunters and sportsmen, and Maynard received honors and decorations not only from his own grateful government, but also from Belgium, Prussia, and Sweden, who lauded this innovative genius. Maynard died at the age of 78 in 1891, recognized by many as the man who made the gun that won the Civil War.

Sports

Dr. Cary Middlecoff, Champion Golfer

One of the greatest golfers of all times, Cary Middlecoff won his third tournament as a professional in 1947 and at least one more every year until his retirement from the game in 1961. He had won 37 major tournaments and was high on the PGA Tour’s all-time list; and in the 1950s had won more money than anyone else (Figure 7)

The son of a dentist, Dr. Herman Middlecoff, Cary was born in Halls, Tenn., in 1921. He was a big youngster; and his father, who was an avid golfer, was determined that his son learn the game. The famed golf champion, Bobby Jones, was friend of the senior Middlecoff, and agreed to teach the youngster the fine points of the game. While still a teenager, Cary won the Memphis city championship and went on to win the state title.

He enrolled at the University of Tennessee School of Dentistry and received his DDS in 1944 and immediately went into the Army Dental Corps. He was discharged in 1946 and joined his father’s dental practice. But he spent more time at golf competitions than at the chair. So his father turned once again to Bobby Jones, asking him to persuade Cary to return to dentistry. Jones tried, but admitted failure. For when Middlecoff won the 1955 Masters tournament, Jones said, "The way he filled those 72 cavities during the last four days makes me think I may have been wrong." Middlecoff considered his win of the 1956 U.S. Open at the Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y., "my greatest accomplishment in golf." There he bested such greats as Ben Hogan and Julius Boros.

Middlecoff never returned to dental practice, earning more than $250,000 in his professional career, a large sum in those days. He died in 1988 at the age of 77.

Dr. Jim Ailinger, National Football League Standout

March 27, 2001, saw the death at the age of 99 of Dr. Jim Ailinger of Buffalo, who, in 1997 was declared the "Oldest Living Former NFL Player" by the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

A 1925 graduate of the School of Dentistry of the University of Buffalo, Ailinger was still a senior at the school when he was signed by the Buffalo All-Americans, the ancestor of today’s Bills. Shortly thereafter the team was sold, changed its name to the Bisons, played its first season in the NFL, and won its first game -- against the Columbus Tigers 13 to 0.

Although slight in build by today’s standards (he was 5 foot 11 inches and 185 pounds), Ailinger nevertheless played almost every position on the team, particularly lineman. The most famous player against whom he played was Jim Thorpe, long considered America’s greatest athlete. Thorpe tried to run Ailinger over on a kick return and, as described by Ailinger, "All I could see were his knees going up and down. I was knocked out cold -- but I tackled him!"

When that first season ended, he was approached by Red Grange, who wanted to recruit him. But Ailinger, fearing damage to his hands, decided to stay with dentistry. However, he became a pro referee for the Intercollegiate Football Association and among the 425 games he worked were four Army-Navy games and three Harvard-Yale games.

Ailinger had a very successful dental practice in Buffalo, retiring at the age of 87.

Dr. Richard Vallese, Mr. Universe

Everyone is familiar with the quondam advertisement of the 90-pound weakling who was always getting sand kicked in his face by the big, tough fellow. The story of Mr. Universe 1987, Dr. Richard Vallese, seemed to be a real life repeat of that ad.

Born in 1939, "Val" as a child was always bullied by the bigger kids. In fact, he was so underdeveloped that his physician suggested growth hormones. When he entered high school, he was only 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed a scrawny 80 pounds. As an undergraduate at Marquette University in Milwaukee, he began a body-building regimen. In time a roommate suggested he enter a bodybuilding competition; and, overcoming his personal doubts, went on to win. From that point there was no stopping him; he went on to win every local competition he entered and eventually won the title of Mr. America (Figure 8).

He entered Marquette’s dental school and received his DDS in 1984 but continued his rigorous training even after he began a flourishing practice. He was still only five foot six, but he tipped the scales at 216 pounds of solid muscle. His biggest triumph came in 1987 when he entered the most prestigious of all bodybuilding competitions, Mr. Universe, and came away with first place. And with the Mr. Universe title under his belt, he went back to practicing dentistry, his other great love.

Dr. Walter B. Tewksbury, Olympic Medalist

Dentists have participated in the Olympic games, but none has garnered as many medals as did a graduate of the School of Dentistry of the University of Pennsylvania, Class of 1899 (Figure 9).

Walter B. Tewksbury was born in 1876 in the small town of Tunkhannock, the county seat of Wyoming County, Pa. A scion of a middle-class family, he enrolled at the Penn dental school. In 1900, the Olympics were to be held in Paris, and in those days there were no national teams; anyone could enter if he had a sponsor and money to travel to the games. Tewksbury was asked to represent the university at the games, which he did with distinction. He brought home two gold medals, two silver, and one bronze. He achieved renown all over the world among sporting circles as a champion hurdle jumper and an outstanding sprinter. He later recounted the beginning of his athletic career. When he was in his freshman year, he said, he "hardly knew what a track team was. I was walking across Franklin Field one day when some student raced over and told me Mike Murphy wanted to see me. ‘I’m going to make a sprinter of you’ said Murphy. That’s how my athletic career started for Penn."

At the Intercollegiate Games, he won the 100 meter and the 220 yard dashes in both 1898 and 1899. These victories were later to be overshadowed by his triumphs at the 1900 Olympics.

Tewksbury continued the practice of dentistry in Tunkhannock until his retirement in 1946. He died in 1968 at the age of 93; and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, in 1999, erected a monument in his honor in the center of his home town.

Author

Malvin E. Ring, DDS, MLS, is the author of Dentistry: An Illustrated History. He practiced dentistry for more than 30 years in Batavia, N.Y.

To request a printed copy of this article, please contact: Malvin Ring, DDS, 2 Roby Drive, Rochester, NY 14618.

Legends

Figure 1. Two close friends, Dr. Clifton O. Dummett (left) who has received numerous honors from the dental profession, and Dr. Cheddi Jagan, the first president of an independent Guyana.

Figure 2. Dr. James B. Edwards, former governor of North Carolina and secretary of energy in the Reagan administration.

Figure 3. Dr. Charles W. Norwood, representative in Congress from Georgia.

Figure 4. Dr. Karl J. Leone, internationally recognized authority on William Faulkner, at work with one of his hobbies, miniature carousels.

Figure 5. The statue in Newport, R.I. by Dr. William Green Turner of famed Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, hero of the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812.

Figure 6. The French government issued a stamp in honor of Francois-Joseph Talma, the dentist who became France’s greatest actor. This postcard bears the postmark of First Day of Issue.

Figure 7. Dr. Cary Middlecoff, who won more money in professional golf tournaments than any other player in the 1950s.

Figure 8. Dr. Richard Vallese, who won the title of Mr. Universe in 1987.

Figure 9. Dr. Walter B. Tewksbury, a star of the 1900 Olympic Games, who brought home medals for the hurdles and as a sprinter.