NYPR Archives & Preservation
WNYC: Champion of Oral Prophylaxis!
Dental health and oral hygiene have been regular topics of discussion over WNYC since its earliest days. Dr. Maxwell P. Chodos, an oral surgeon with the Child Welfare Board, spoke graphically from the studio about the relation of mouth hygiene to overall health at 10:05 on the evening of October 8, 1924.
...Unfortunately, the pus hidden by a tooth may only be a drop or two and produce no pain, in either the tooth or immediate area; but the system is continually absorbing the poison of the pus. The pus gradually destroys the red blood cells, producing a severe anemia. The kidneys being obliged to excrete this pus are themselves damaged in the process of elimination. Thus causing diseases of the kidneys. So we see that a few hidden drops of pus will leave in their trail almost unbelievable disease and destruction...
No doubt this was just the sort of thing listeners wanted to hear at bedtime. But then, perhaps, it proved to be a tooth brushing incentive, which Dr. Chodos recommended should be done at least twice a day. He also urged seeing "a competent dentist at least three times a year."
For more than 25 years, the Oral Hygiene Committee of Greater New York aired weekly talks on 'mouth health education.' The 15-minute programs covered a wide range of issues concerned with best practices for addressing dental care, gum disease, and decay. The committee was composed of representatives from the region's dental societies as well as area health organizations and their advocates. In the August 1938 Journal of the American Dental Association and The Dental Cosmos, Brooklyn dentist Harold S. Horton wrote that the committee had won praise for more than 415 talks heard on WNYC over the previous four years.
It may not be known to you that in the past the municipal broadcasting station has been building up the finest educational broadcasting service in this country. It has been the aim of this present administration to make this station the medium for disseminating every branch of education, and oral hygiene has not been left out. The new transmitting station on the east shore of the East River has been completed and it is much more powerful than it was and is serving a very large area in and around Greater New York. Dentistry is indeed fortunate in this wonderful opportunity for service. Consider the cost of what this radio time would be if the commercial stations had to be paid for it at present broadcasting rates. [1]
The Oral Hygiene Committee published in 1939 a volume of forty-four WNYC talks, including such titles as “Mickey McGonigle's Missing Molars,” “Painless Dental Methods,” “Why Children Have Crooked Teeth” and “Trench Mouth." Living up to its designation as a Radio Manual, it also contained a short appendix of suggestions for "broadcasting mouth health information." According to the committee, high demand exhausted the initial print run of one thousand copies, so in 1947 it released a second volume. The new book contained some fifty broadcast scripts covering a 'cross-section' of talks from January 1940 to July 1946, with nearly a quarter of them focusing on children's teeth,[2] as well as an expanded appendix that now included a how-to guide for people interested in conducting a public health campaign on the radio. However, the new publication garnered this critical notice from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Within the narrow limitations of the subject, the broadcasts have achieved rather remarkable variety and interest in the scripts presented. Many of them, however, fail in the fundamental requirement of radio broadcasting, mainly, the necessity of broadcasting to the listener rather than merely at and for him. Information about the American Dental Association is undoubtedly important and of great interest to dentists, but it tends to leave the lay listener indifferent and disposed to tune out the program. In a number of the scripts, the information is largely what the dentist would like the patient to know rather than what the patient would like the dentist to tell him.[3]
The 1947 Radio Manual also contained a report on "mouth health educational broadcasting." The study was the first of its kind, according to the Pennsylvania State Dental Journal. The Keystone state dentists were far more favorable than the JAMA editors, calling the work "of inestimable assistance to those who are contemplating public addresses or the preparation of dental educational literature for lay use." They also suggested the shows become a regular fixture of dental office waiting rooms.[4]
I can't help but wonder if the mixed JAMA review represents a touch of professional antagonism between the leading white lab-coated professions. Nevertheless, the committee made some efforts in the late 1940s to reach WNYC listeners with a less preachy approach to the program via Chairside Chats (audio above). In submitting 'Chats' to the Peabody awards committee for review, WNYC described it as:
Informal, authoritative discussions between Dr. George Wood Clapp and Miss Caroline Hawkes, intended to increase public trust in oral hygiene and preventative dentistry. The talks are arranged under the supervision of the sub-committee radio broadcasts of the Oral Hygiene Committee of Greater New York. The discussion is lively and interesting.[5]
Mouth health educational broadcasting on WNYC was, however, far from limited to informal chats. The station also aired related lectures and symposiums from the New York Academy of Medicine, coverage of activities of the annual Children's Dental Health Day and Week,[6] a documentary about a woman getting dentures, an interview with the explorer dentist L. M. Waugh, and a significant amount of debate in favor of and against water fluoridation. There were even a few dental dramas like this 1949 production of Regarding Tooth Decay produced by the University of Illinois.
Thanks to the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Collection at the University of George and the American Archive of Public Broadcasting for the copy of Chairside Chats and to the New York City Municipal Archives WNYC Collection for our copy of Regarding Tooth Decay.
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[1] Horton, Harold S., Journal of the American Dental Association and The Dental Cosmos, Vol 25, August 1938, pgs. 1346-1347
[2] Oral Hygiene Committee of Greater New York, Radio Manual, A Guide to Broadcasting for Mouth Health Education, American Book-Stratford Press, New York, 1947.
[3] "Book Notices," Journal of the American Medical Association, July 17, 1948, Vol, 137, No. 12, pg. 1095.
[4] "Radio Manual," The Pennsylvania State Dental Journal, March 1948, Volume 15, Issue 6, pg. 26.
[5] George Wood Clapp was the long-time editor of Dental Digest published by The Dental Supply Company of New York City. He was also the author of several books including the seminal 1910 work, The Mechanical Side of Anatomical Articulation, which explained the intricacies of jaw movement, knowledge critical for the making of dentures.
[6] The first Children's Dental Health Day was on February 8, 1949. In 1955, the one-day event was extended to a week, and in 1981 to a month.