Just imagine sitting in class in Marquette Hall and seeing a dead body being pulled up to the fifth floor. This was not an unusual sight if you were a student before the early 1960s. These cadavers were dissected and studied by students of what used to be Loyola’s School of Dentistry.
The School of Dentistry opened in 1914. By 1927, the program had the largest incoming class in its history and was operating a successful dental clinic. The dental clinic was run by junior and senior students.
According to The Maroon’s reports from 1928, the dental school had the highest percentage of students pass various state board exams between 1910 and 1927 than any other dental college in the country, with the help of the hands on practice the clinic provided.
According to The Maroon’s December 10, 1976 issue, bodies were sometimes exposed to bystanders when the baskets they were carried in would tilt and an arm or leg would fall out. John Liberto, A’57, recalled his experience with the cadavers.
“I was there the day one of the cadavers fell off the gurney and splattered on the quadrangle right outside of Marquette Hall,” he said.
Darlene Bassett, A’71, was the only female dental student when she attended Loyola and remembers having pranks pulled on her by upperclassmen.
“I would have strange body parts on my desk in the morning. They did everything they could to traumatize me,” Bassett said.
“We used to pull a few jokes on the freshman students in Arts & Sciences. When some new student would ask us about the location of a classroom, we would direct them up there. You couldn’t miss the bodies, since there is only one entrance, which is also the exit. Many of them would scream and sometimes the girls would faint,” recalled Edward Levy, A’47, in a 1976 Maroon article.
The School of Dentistry was phased out between 1968 and 1971. Liberto, who still teaches at LSU’s dental school, said he appreciated his time at the School of Dentistry.
“I have a lot to be thankful for because I wouldn’t have enjoyed the things in my life that came afterwards,” Liberto said.
Mary Jameson can be reached at [email protected]
Marion Langdon • Oct 27, 2020 at 8:40 am
Oh, yes. I was a student at Hotel Dieu School of Nursing on 1963 and right during religion class we could hear the cranking of the cadavers being hauled up the the floor above us. One time some fellow nursing students and I went up there to see and I remember so well a dental student, being somewhat embarrassed I guess, standing in front of a gurney with a naked man so we could not see his genitals. We saw another student pulling some muscles in an arm to make the fingers move. It was an interesting experience and, of course, I understood they playfulness instead of their silent seriousness. My aunt donated her body to some such lab in 2009 and I admire her for that but I don’t think I ever could.
I found your article interesting and it sure brought back a lot of memories.
Thanks. Marion