September 16-17, 2011
All IUSD Graduates Are Invited,
With a Special Focus on the Reunion Classes Whose Years End in 1 and 6
University Place Hotel • IUPUI Campus • Indianapolis Featuring dedication of
IUSD Preclinical Laboratory
(317) 274-8959 • http://alumni.iupui.edu
2011’s scramble at Eagle Creek Golf Club—ranked by Golf Digest magazine as one of Indiana’s top public courses
Howard Riley Raper 1886 -1978
Dr. Raper during his brief IDC career Dr. Raper (at left in the second
jalopy) on a tooth-saving mission with Indiana Dental College students. Most of the students appear to be members of the class of 1916.
Muffins to the left of us, rum balls to the right, and other palate-pleasing temptations around every corner: Whether you’re maneuvering through the holidays, a birthday celebration—
or simply your own family’s evening meal—
it’s a challenge to keep all those excess calories from hopping aboard for the ride.
To avoid overindulging, you might want to try following the long-ago advice of one of Indiana’s dental legends—radiology pioneer
Dr. Howard Riley Raper, who advocated putting the cart ahead of the horse where eating was concerned—he believed in enjoying dessert beforedinner.
Having Your Cake and
Eating It —
First?
r. Raper, the 1906 Indiana Dental College graduate for whom one of the seminar rooms on the second floor of the IU School of Dentistry is named, was a major force in the movement to make x-ray diagnosis of dental caries an essential part of modern dental practice.
Today, the Howard Riley Raper room houses a large collection of Dr. Raper’s personal papers, correspondence, and research memorabilia that was donated to the school by the Raper estate.
Dr. Raper taught at the Indiana Dental College in the first years of his career, devel- oping the first course in dental radiography to be offered at a U.S. dental school (ours).
In 1909, Dr. Raper got wind of a good-as-new second-hand x-ray unit that was selling in Chicago for $200. He was so eager to acquire it for the Indiana Dental College that he offered to pay for it through $10 monthly deductions from his $100 monthly salary. Dental dean George Edwin Hunt agreed to the deal at first, but hav- ing himself a good understanding of the role such a machine could play in Indiana’s teaching program, he ultimately purchased it with college funds.
Dr. Raper’s Elementary and Dental Radiographywas published in 1913, and was one of the earliest dental texts in the field.
In 1917 Dr. Raper moved to Albuquerque, N.M., for health reasons, and there he thrived. (He died at age 91, in 1978.) Out West he continued to blaze trails in den- tistry. He became famous in the 1920s, and is best remembered today, as the inventor of the interproximal bitewing x-ray examination, with his bitewing film packet being introduced to the world by the Eastman Kodak Company.
He was a prolific and popular author of dentally related literature for dentists and consumers alike. His 1932 preventive dentistry Hygeiaarticle, “How to Prevent Toothache,” was reprinted as a booklet by the Eastman company and distributed to millions of Americans into the 1970s.
Another of his books, Man Against Pain, published in 1945, was a landmark work on the history of anesthesia.
Later on in his career Dr. Raper, a savvy and witty publicist, promoted the tongue- in-cheek idea of eating dessert before dinner, noting that this suggestion was by no means a new one.
Dr. Raper reasoned that if you polished off your dessert first, two good things would happen: 1) the substantive part of the repast would help wash away all the sticky sweets deposited on your teeth from the dessert, and 2) the sugary beginnings of the meal would reduce the desire for second helpings of the subsequent courses, thus playing a convenient role in weight control.
(We’re just guessing here, but we have a feeling Dr. Raper was a meat-and-potatoes man, not a fellow with a sweet tooth. Otherwise, he might have foreseen how a hungry dessert devotee, carried away by the first course, might possibly fill up on two or three pieces of pecan pie and then have to skip the nutritious part of the meal altogether.)
Dr. Raper’s whimsical writings on this subject eventually caught the eye of the edi- tors at Timemagazine, who reported on his theory in a 1962 issue of the publication.
But, as the scholar admitted to Time, Mrs. Raper wasn’t nearly as keen on this unique dining regimen as her husband. Howard’s plate of goodies didn’t arrive ahead of the main course at his own dinner table, he lamented, unless he made a point of asking for it.
by Susan Crum
D
In the 1980s, IU honored faculty member Myron J. Kasle (DDS’62, M’72 Radiology) by bestowing upon him the newly established title of Howard Riley Raper Professor of Dental Radiology. Dr. Kasle chaired the Department of Radiology from 1971 until 1986, when the department became a division of the new Department of Dental Diagnostic Sciences. He chaired the radiology division of that department until his retirement in 1990.Today Dr. Kasle, of Indianapolis, holds the title of Howard Riley Raper Professor Emeritus of Dental Diagnostic Sciences.