Acupuncture being used at dental school
ACUPUNCTURE TREATMENT—Toussaint Dubois of Los Angeles receives acupuncture treatment at the School of Dentistry. Researchers are using the ancient practice to help cure head pain. Sometimes acupuncture has been successful in treating pain, and work is going on to further the use of acupuncture to relieve pain.
Acupuncture is being used by USC dentists to test its use in helping reduce persistant pain.
The 5,000-year-old procedure is one ofthe newest weapons against pain to be used in the Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) and Perioral Pain Clinic here in the School of Dentistry. Sometimes it brings relief where other methods have failed.
Dr. Sylvan Schireson explained that the clinic’s purpose is to diagnose puzzling cases of head pain.
“If the pain arises from a medical problem we will refer the patient to appropriate specialists. But if it arises from the temporomandibular joint, the teeth, or the gums, we will try a variety of treatments,” he said.
Some ofthe treatments could be hot wet packs, soft diet, exercise, dental work, or devices—and now acupuncture.
Shireson has been working along with the associate director
at the clinic, Dr. Hershel Mintzer, in studying acupuncture for approximately two years under the instruction of Dr. Yiu Wing Choi.
Dr. Choi received full training in acupuncture as part of the curriculum of the medical school of Peking University. He is now a consultant at the School of Dentistry and a regular participant in the TMJ Clinic.
“Trained acupuncturists locate sites for insertion of needles by their sense of touch. Dr. Mintzer and I are also trying a battery-operated device as a ‘point-finder,’ which we pass lightly over the patient’s face or hands in the general area of an acupuncture site.
At the exact point where a needle should be inserted, the point finder will emit a high-pitched hum which indicates a change in the resistance of the skin,” said Shireson.
Usual placement of the needles for TMJ pain is at the base of the thumbs and on the face, in the area of the jaws.
Dr. Shireson said that, in spite of many efforts to determine why acupuncture is successful, there are no completely satisfactory explanations.
“Current theories link it to the autonomic nervous system. This is the nervous system we can’t usually control that affects the heartbeat or blood pressure.
“The theory is that the needle at a certain acupuncture point will block pain signals from the nerves along certain pathways in the body.
“In other words, we know that one part of the body affects another, but we don’t always know why. We are looking for answers in our clinic and, in the course of our research, we are helpingquite a few people,” said Shireson.
Summer
Trojan
University of Southern California
Vol. LXVI, No. 16
Los Angeles, California
Wednesday, August 22, 1973
Troy Camp wins $500 in contest
Troy Camp has won $500 in the first annual LA on Foot contest.
USC won 224 to 78 over UCLA in the contest which included a walk through the flower and produce markets of the city back in May.
Sponsored by the Camaro Publishing Company, the contest entailed following the route in chapter four of the book LA on Foot published by that company, which begins at the corner of Seventh and Wall Streets in downtown LA.
At sunrise on May 17, USC walkers were well on their way. each holdingtickets distributed between 3 and 4 a.m. to participants to turn in at the end of the walk as votes.
UCLA participants held blue tickets, USC had red.
USC had more tickets turned in by the time limit and captured the prize to help the underprivileged children of the city who go to Troy Camp.
Frances Sutton won a $25 prize for the winning slogan for the walk. It was “Walking is foot for the soul.”
Next year Camaro plans to have additional cosponsors in order to increase the prize money, said Garth Bishop, publisher ofCamaro. “Theprize. which again would go to aid the underprivileged ofthe city, would be divided betweenthetwoschools according to vote count,” he said.
Orchestra, choir to be at music convention
The USC Symphony orchestra and concert choir will be featured at the Music National Conference and the American Choral Directors Association to be held next spring at the Anaheim convention center.
This will be the second consecutive year a USC choral group has been invited to appear before the choral directors association. The Chamber Singers performed last year at their convention.
Selection to this annual event is always highly competitive. with organizations chosen by an impartial jury of musicians, whose decisions are based on personal contact with the entries and by review of concert tapes.
Daniel Lewis, director of the orchestra, announced that some USC composers
will be particularly featured.
Two works of the orchestra have already been programmed including “Diversions for Viola, Cello, and Orchestra,” by Grant Beg-larian, dean of the School of Performing Arts.
Gregor Piatigorsky, a professor of music, is scheduled to perform as one ofthe soloists in the “Diversion.”
The orchestra concert will also include the “Symphony in Three Movements” by Frederick Lesemann, a member of the composition faculty.
Both works have recently received their world premieres—Beglarian's piece by Piatigorsky and Milton Katims with the Seattle Symphony: and Lesemann’s by the Buffalo Philharmonic under the direction of Michael Thomas.
Area around Exposition Park gets new sidewalk lighting
By Sue Cohn
New street and sidewalk lighting costing $253,000 was recently installed around Exposition Park and the Coliseum-Sports Arena complex.
The lighting was financed by the county and the work which began after USC’s football season last year, was done under contract by the city.
Los Angeles County Supervisor, Kenneth Hahn, said that the lighting “will mean better safety for persons attending games in the Coliseum and Sports Arena or going to functions at the University of Southern California.”
Robert Bush, deputy county supervisor, said the university had nothing to do with obtaining the improved lighting.
Hahn said, “The most modern, up-to-date lighting was installed.” Mercury vapor regular street lights with two arms were instal-
Physics, engineering prof is science, math dean
led. One arm lights the sidewalk, one the street.
“The lights were designed to make it safer for people going to the Coliseum and Sports Arena.” said Bush, “and as a side effect it helps the university.”
Bush said the better lighted sidewalks will also “cut down on pickpockets and things of that sort.”
The idea for the lighting was Hahn's and was pendingforaboutayearand a halfbefore actual construction began. The job was completed in cooperation with Billy Mills and Gilbert Lindsay, city councilmen for this area, and Jerome S. Lapporte, director of the bureau of street lighting.
The new lighting now exists on Exposition Boulevard from Figueroa Street to Vermont Avenue: on Figueroa from Exposition to Santa Barbara Avenue; on Santa Barbara from Figueroa to Vermont and on Vermont from Exposition to Santa Barbara.
William Wagner, professor of physics and electrical engineering since 1966. has been named dean ofthe division of natural sciences and mathematics.
Wagner succeeds William Spitzer who is returning to full-time teaching and research after serving as dean for the past year. He is a professor of physics, electrical engineering, and materials science.
The divisional deanship is one of three in the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences.
Wagner has been a Tolman research fellow for three years at Caltech, a senior staff physicist for the Hughes Research Laboratory, a consultant to the Rand Corporation. and was an associate professor of physics at UC Irvine.
His special fields of interest are the physics of quantum electronics, elementary particle and solid state physics.
Grad student named as
councilman
Gary Milliman, a graduate student in the School of Public Administration, was recently named to the City of Maywood city council to fill an unexpired term.
Millman. who is employed full time by the City of Bell Gardens as an administra-' tive assistant, is the youngest city councilman in Los Angeles County at age 23.
TV producer will teach writing class
The School of Journalism has named Maury Green, award-winning television producer, director, and critic, to its faculty beginning in the fall, Theodore Kruglak, director of the school announced.
Green will be a senior lecturer in radio-television news writing.
The new faculty member has won numerous awards for his work in communication. He holds Emmy and Golden Mike awards and has written a textbook on television news.
He has been teaching university courses for the past five years, in addition to writing for newspapers, magazines, and film studios. He is widely known for his analysis of the broadcast media.