Reiss Robert - Doctor Yank: Memoirs of a Millitary Dentist

I was born Saturday, December 12, 1914, in a cold water flat in the east Bronx. It wasnt long until my family moved to 2028 Grand Concourse, which was the first apartment house built on the boulevard. At the time, the service road was paved but the center highway was still a dirt road. The building had a front and a rear entrance, and women would often have their boyfriend drive them home to the front entrance and then go out through the rear entrance to their real home.

Our first apartment there was at the back of the building and our kitchen window overlooked the garbage cans. We soon moved to the front of the house, and the fire escape there was a grandstand seat for the terrific parades each year. From that vantage point, we could easily see cowboys, American Indians in native dress, soldiers, sailors, nurses, veterans, politicians, bands, scouts, WWI army tanks, police on horseback, and the American Red Cross, who always had a big flag spread out to catch pennies.

Growing up, I was the typical busy little boy and had my fair share of injuries and mishaps. My mother had constant opportunities to use her home remedies on me. For example, when I was 3 I choked on two pennies. My mother instantly grabbed me by the feet, turned me upside down, and shook me. When I came down with a high fever, she kept applying cold towels to my forehead to prevent delirium. When I had a bad case of bronchitis, she sat me in a chair, put a blanket over my head and put a pot of steaming tincture of benzoin under the blanket to saturate the atmosphere I was breathing. She also rubbed musterole on my chest. For swollen glands in my neck, she would apply a black salve called Iodex. My father also had a number of home remedies that I utilized from time to time.

2028 Grand Concourse and Boulevard Corner Bush Street. 1920.

Pimples on the mucous membrane of the nose were treated with Pinauds lilac toilet water. Sores on the lips were coated with camphor ice. Sore joints or muscles were soaked with Burrows solution. Annoying eye problems were cured with an eye cup and a boric acid and camphor eyewash. Minor cuts were washed with peroxide, dried and covered directly with adhesive tape. For an upset stomach, sodium phosphate was a favorite. Bleeding from shaving nicks (this was before safety razors were invented) was stopped with the application of a styptic pencil, which I still use.

In addition to the usual number of boyhood injuries, I also have a scar on my right middle finger from a broken glass butter dish (plastic had not yet been invented). The scar tissue encased a nerve ending, forming a neuroma; it still gives me great pain when injured. I saw an intern about it years later when I was a dental student at Columbia; he wanted to treat it with radiation. I researched the literature and since nerve tissue is the last tissue to be destroyed by radiation, I decided that it might do more harm than good.

During my childhood, after doing somersaults on the grass one summer, I developed ringworm of the scalp; to treat it, I had to have my head shaved and iodine applied to my scalp. (Years later, iodine would be the only medicine to cure a skin infection that I developed while in Panama.) Also, as a child I had a slight case of scoliosis and flat feet. For the scoliosis, I used to exercise hanging from wall bars with my back to the wall. For the flat feet, I didnt want to wear arch supports because I felt they made the wearer dependent on their support; instead, I cured it with exercise (up on my toes and down on the outer rim of my feet) My flat feet were diagnosed by the school doctor, who examined all the childrens feet one year by having us walk on a glass table.

One day I came down with nasal problems and an ENT specialist gave me pinoleum drops to place in my nose. To instill the drops in the right nostril, I tilted my head to the left and vice versa. This prevents the drops from flowing into the Eustachian tube. Years later, after we had moved from Grand Concourse, I had a bad case of tonsillitis and refused the recommended operation. My physician applied Dakins solution directly to the tonsils and cured the problem.

I would probably have had an even greater number of mishaps had I not learned from the mistakes of others. For example, when we used to run around Echo Park, I heard the story of a boy who jumped off a high rock and bit his tongue badly when his chin hit his knee. Later, when I learned to ice skate at Van Cortland Park, my father pointed out people with horizontal scars on their chin, as a result of falling on the ice.

My uncle was my first dentist. He had a drygoods store on Fulton Street in Brooklyn, and he would tie a thread around my deciduous tooth to remove it. Once, when I had a bad deciduous molar, my mother took me to a doctor in Manhattan. The doctor had a small forceps (which they still sell today). He palmed it so that I could not see it.

When my uncles brother-in-law pulled my upper first molar, there was a loud cracking sound in my skull that sounded as if my whole maxilla was broken. A few people I knew died shortly after they had teeth extracted. As a result, when I became a dentist I usually prescribed a prophylactic antibiotic for my older patients before an extraction.

A dentist I went to later, Dr. Gecker, became my mentor. I spent a great deal of time in his office, which helped point me toward a dental career. He had an old-fashioned x-ray machine; the overhead wires were exposed and I could smell the ozone when the machine was turned on. One day, his nurse touched the sterilizer and the water faucet at the same time, and she was thrown across the room by the electric shock.

I have many fond memories of my youth, and the contributions my family made to my upbringing. My father invented the first pile fabric around the time that zippers were invented. He also gave me my first job; I was an apprentice and swept floors in his factory. From that, I graduated to shipping clerk; when promoted to salesman, however, I didnt do very well. I did not get paid, but my dad would take me to lunch. On Sundays, he would take me downtown to the department stores. Their windows showcased the latest Paris fashions; I would sketch the newest coat styles, and his designer would make matching designs for children so that the stores could sell a mother-and-daughter combination. (My aunt made passementaries in her home and sold them to my father for decorations on the coats.) Dad also introduced me to the works of Shakespeare, and books like Nathan the Wise and Sorab And Rustum. One winter, my father bought me a flexible flier, and he took me for a ride on it the first night it snowed. Later, Dad taught me how to shave with a straight razor (the trick is to stretch your skin with your left hand so that the hairs pop up). He also showed me how to sharpen the hollow ground razor on a sharp stone and on a leather razor strap. Then, from his experience as a carpenter, he taught me how to use a saw, ax, rough plane, smooth plane and chisel.

My mother only had a grade school education but she learned from the Bible, and she had a terrific memory for songs and poems. Some of her favorites were Dorkins Dream, The Polish Boy, Im Forever Blowing Bubbles, The Sidewalks of New York, Annie Roonie, and A Bicycle Built For Two. She used to keep a canary, perhaps because in those days women were like birds in a gilded cage. Mother was a fantastic cook and often made pineapple cheesecake, apple strudel, fritters, baked apple pie, and other desserts. We had many holiday parties, including one to feed the starving Armenians.