End of Pain

Last week virtually every man, woman & child in the civilized world had reason to hail Dr. Leroy Leo Hartman of Columbia University with profound, personal gratitude as an authentic Hero of Science. What hundreds of researchers had worked toward since dentistry began, what millions of dentists and their patients had ardently desired, Dr. Hartman had achieved. After 20 years of experiment he had destroyed the threat of the world's most dreaded torture instrument, the dentist's drill, made painless dentistry at last a fact.

Handsome, amiable, deep-voiced Hero Hartman was born in Victoria, B. C. in, 1893, graduated from Northwestern University Dental School at 20, practiced in Seattle, went to France with the A.E.F., is now head of the Department of Operative Dentistry in Columbia's School of Dental & Oral Surgery. For 18 years of his battle against pain he experimented along the conventional, unsatisfactory lines of blocking tooth nerves or deadening them by narcotic injections. Two years ago he discovered a new substance in dentine, the bonelike matter underlying tooth enamel. Working on a new theory of pain, he developed a chemical which is spread on the surface of the tooth, painlessly destroys all capacity for pain within 60 to 90 seconds. Dr. Hartman has tested his "desensitizer" on some 500 cases in his school's clinic, succeeded where the best previous methods had left the patient to suffer excruciating pain. Unlike novocain and other anesthetics, the new substance produces no aftereffects, leaves tooth pulp normal and healthy. "It is so simple to use," declared Dr. Hartman, "that the patient is not aware of its application. . . ."

Patent rights to the "desensitizer" have been assigned to Columbia which will, Dr. Hartman promised, soon make the stuff available for general use, protect the public from exploitation.* Because patent negotiations had not yet been completed, Dr. Hartman was unwilling last week to disclose the composition and rationale of his beneficent substance. Eagerly awaiting details, grateful spokesmen for New York City's 3,000 organized dentists cried: "We hail Dr. Hartman's discovery as a miraculous advance. . . ."

*A large academic question is whether universities should thus capitalize their researchers' discoveries. Last fortnight University of Pennsylvania revealed that it had lost its cancer research department because trustees refused a request of Irenee du Pont, who had supported the department since its founding, that discoveries be patented, profits used to reward discoverers and finance further research.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.