October 29, 2007

Unmasking a dentist’s
unusual assignment

In the 1950s the medical school's department chairs sat for moulages, three-dimensional molds of their faces. If moulages were good enough for them, why not for you this Halloween?

When the medical school chairs sat for their moulages, William Lawrence, D.D.S., who was then chief of dental surgery, wanted their faces to relax to prevent their muscles from tightening. "I told them to think of something sexy," he said.

Sure, you could go to the Halloween party wearing one of those uncomfortable rubber Frankenstein masks, but if you want to win the prize for most creative costume, why not make a moulage?

From the French meaning casting or molding, moulage is a skin-safe reusable molding material used by emergency response teams and other medical and military personnel for injury simulation. But back in the 1950s, moulage was put to a very different use at Yale.
William Lawrence, D.D.S., former associate professor and chief of dental surgery, used the technique to craft three-dimensional molds of the faces of the medical school’s department chairs.  Examples of his work are on view in the Historical Library at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library.

Lawrence’s creations aren’t the artifacts of a fondly remembered masquerade ball. The moulages were commissioned as a cost-effective way to honor the school’s leaders by recreating their likenesses for display. Traditional oil portraits were expensive, so the dean’s office asked Lawrence try his hand at sculpture using the techniques of dentistry.

Lawrence, 95, remembers the assignment well. He began by covering the subject’s face with the film used for taking impressions to make gold inlay fillings. Next came a layer of gauze, followed by a coating of plaster. Meanwhile, the subject breathed through straws inserted in the nostrils. After the impression dried, Lawrence filled it with dental stone. The result was an exact replica of the contours of the subject’s face.

The process, introduced late in the 19th century for the diagnosis and treatment of venereal and skin diseases, was uncomfortable, but it was essential to have the subjects relax in order to prevent tightening of the facial muscles.  “I told them to think of something sexy,” recalls Lawrence. The advice must have worked because all his masks capture expressions of peaceful contentment.

The first department chairman to have his moulage made was so pleased with the result that his colleagues quickly lined up to get theirs done. The masks now on display in the library are of former Dean Francis Gilman Blake, M.D.; Sterling Professor of Physiology John F. Fulton, M.D.; Anthony Brady Professor of Pathology Harry Greene, M.D.; Chair of Surgery Samuel C. Harvey, M.D.; Dean C.N.H. Long, M.D.; Professor of Preventive Medicine John Paul, M.D.; John Slade Ely Professor of Medicine John P. Peters, M.D.; Associate Professor of Pediatrics Robert Salinger, M.D.; and Associate Professor and Chief of Dental Surgery Bert George Anderson, D.D.S. Anderson was a friend and colleague who preceded Lawrence as chief.

After Lawrence completed his assignment for the medical school, more requests followed, including one from the author and playwright Thornton Wilder. Lawrence unveiled Wilder’s likeness during one of the writer’s spirited house parties in Hamden. Wilder complained that the moulage didn’t do justice to his intelligent brow, but he must have come to like it because he donated it, along with his papers, to Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

When the school bowed to tradition and agreed to spring for oil portraits, Lawrence kept the faculty moulages and continued using the technique for other purposes, including prosthetic noses and ears. He also devised a tool that fit between the teeth and enabled an armless veteran to turn pages.

Moulage is still used today for casualty exercises, and the materials are easily purchased online, so this Halloween, if you see someone shambling toward you with an oozing wound in his skull, don’t panic, it’s probably just a moulage.

—Jennifer Kaylin and Colleen Shaddox

Photos by Terry Dagradi

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