UKCAF website

The Lytle S Adams Memorial Award for outstanding services to the reputation of the dental profession.

A new award for selfless devotion to health and safety by members of the dental and public health professions.

This month's award goes to

Dr Alfred P Southwick MDS, DDS

In the true spirit of absolute conviction generated by an entirely unscientific approach to scientific investigation Dr Alfred Southwick happened, entirely accidentally, to witness the involuntary expiry by electrocution of a drunk, who had come into contact with a live terminal of a large generator in Buffalo, New York, in 1881. Being intimately familiar with the infliction of substantial physical pain on subjects positioned on the formidably designed dental chairs of the period, he immediately realised the potential for extending the practice to the complete and ultimate termination of patients in such an accomodating and conveniently vulnerable device.

The good dentist and former steam-boat engineer was convinced that this was the ultimate answer to finding a more humane method of dispatching miscreants and low-lifes than hanging, strangulation, flaying alive or any of the other more conventional methods of life-termination employed by an enthusiastic State. He therefore devoted a considerable amount of his time in attempting to perfect this convenient and technologically elegant solution to ridding the community of undesirables. He served on the New York State's 'Electrical Death Commission' between 1888 and 1889, and in January 1889, saw

his efforts rewared by the passing of the world's first electrical execution legislation.

This was finally implemented in practice on August 6, 1890, when William Francis Kemmler became the first person to die in the electric chair.

There was at the time a 'war of currents' between the rival proponents of AC and DC electricity. Thomas Edison preferred direct current electricity, and with his employee Harold P Brown, publicly executed many animals with AC for the delectation of the gutter press in order to ensure that AC current was associated with electrocution. Brown bult the first electric chair, but had to lie about the use to which the generator would be put when he attemoptede to purchase one from Westinghouse, because Westinghouse refused to sell one of his generators to power an electric chair!

Early experiments with electrocution were not a little alarming to those winessing this 'humane' form of life-termination. Since the objective was to destroy as much of the internal organs of the body, including the brain, the application of the electrical current was manipulated in an attempt to obtain the required effect. This could result in parts of the body of the victim exploding, eyeballs popping out of thier sockets, and even parts of the body of the subject catching fire before death finally ensued.

Not quite the same as a gentle recommendation to "Just rinse and spit, Sir!" that we expect nowadays of our dental professionals.

'Old Sparky' -
a popular exhibit at
the Texas Prison Museum

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Our Founder, Dr Lytle S Adams, and his amazing Bat Bomb.
(The United States of America, 1942)

Here's a test for you - if the atom bomb represented the ultimate in weaponry in the 1940s, what was the penultimate weapon?

The answer may surprise you - it was the Bat Bomb, designed by an American, Dr Lytle S Adams. The good doctor knew when he was on to a good thing, and at a time of excruciating national financial difficulty, in 1942, this ingenious chap managed to squeeze US$2 million out of the American Government to develop small incendiary devices attached to bats. These would be released over Japanese cities, where, Dr Adams assured the military, they would go to roost in fire-prone Japanese dwellings, where their little timing mechanisms would set off the bombs and set entire cities aflame.

When President Roosevelt was handed a note from his wife informing him that she thought the idea was just crazy enough to work, the President scribbled in the margin, ‘This man is not a nut,’ and sent it off the the War Department.

Unfortunately (I bet you guessed I’d say that?) there was a slight hitch. During the development stage of this top secret project, some of the loaded bats escaped from the laboratory. They made straight for the buildings around the lab, settled in for the day - and set the entire research facility alight.

But undeterred, the military doggedly persevered with Dr Adams’ lunatic project, and it was only abandoned when their new wonder weapon was superseded by the development of the atom bomb itself. The world was spared the release of this truly hideous weapon by a whisker!

So what has this to do with fluoridation? Well, this may sound just a little bit familiar to you, but I have to tell you that the deranged inventor of the Bat Bomb, Dr Lytle S Adams, was actually a dentist. So maybe now you are beginning to see just what sort of minds we are dealing with?

For the full story on video, go to
http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=41725

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Why do we need an Award?

Over the years members of the dental profession have provided the world with an astounding - not to say incredible - array of ingenious inventions, aimed at furthering the quality of life of a generally unappreciative public.

Amongst their more widely recognised achievements has been the invention of a method of imperceptibly percolating mercury vapour from dental amalgam fillings into the brains of children, an invention employed with some degree of personal risk even to the cognitive processes of devoted practitioners of dental surgery themselves.

Then there is the invention of a truly remarkable range of products that have been expressly designed to administer tiny but therapeutically cumulative doses of an otherwise virulently poisonous substance - fluoride - into the teeth and other organs of infants, children, and even adults.

In the early days of primitive dentistry, practitioners relied on a terrifying range of alarming ingredients for the maintenance of dental hygiene. The arrival of fluoride removed at a stroke the need to expose the public to such a wide range of hazardous substances - fluoride possessed all of the properties needed to replace earlier, less reliable, ingredients.

In recent years the determination of a small but devoted band of fluoride devotees to persuade a reportedly rational dental profession, and the general public*, to consume their fabulous elixir is a monument to their determination.

It deserves far wider recognition, especially by the many members of the lethargic legal profession, whose offspring now bear testimony to the effects of easy - or even excessive - access to fluoride-saturated dental products.

So we have decided to give you, the public (yes, even Australians) the chance to nominate someone whom you judge to be worthy of recognition for the new Lytle S Adams Memorial Award. Send us your nominations, and a short summary (no more than four paragraphs, please) of the reasons that you feel that this award should go to the deserving individual of your choice. Remember that nominees should be serving or retired (or even dead) members of the dental or public health professions.

If you plan to send a photo, make sure that you have copyright and it was taken in a public place. Or we may even be able to accept a short video clip, or a link to one on YouTube or elsewhere.

The standards that we apply in scrutininsing the nominations will be high. To give you an indication of what level of achievement will be accepted, we have put below a short summary of the brilliant and selfless devotion to international safety by the Founder of our Award, Dr Lytle S Adams himself. Send your nominations to award@ukcaf.org - and thanks for your co-operation.

( * Except, of course, Australians. Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has placed it officially on record that 'Australians are too stupid to take their medicine!' - and who can argue with a person of such immense authority?)