Gossip Friday: A Tooth for a Shoulder
From January 1941:
Baltimore–Dr. Louis Hamman said today Clark Gable would have a tooth extracted in an effort to cure a shoulder ailment that actor has suffered since 1937.
Gable, who arrived Monday with Carole Lombard, said “present plans call for us to fly back to Hollywood Saturday or Sunday.”
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Tooth extraction to cure a shoulder ailment?!
4 Comments
Coco B
Not as far fetched as one might be inclined to believe. But oh would I love to see the whole file.
Linda Duarte
Can you imagine seeing his file and Mrs. Gable’s as well from that visit? It would be very interesting although I would feel terrible invading their privacy (but only for a minute!).
admin
I know it’s none of my business either but YES I WOULD LOVE TO TAKE A PEEK!
Morris Galloway
Look at Clark’s Famous Doctor! Louis Hamman (December 20, 1877 – April 28, 1946)
was recognized as one of the great clinicians in his time. He was graduated M.D.
from Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins. After interning at New York Hospital he returned in 1903 to
his alma mater to become head of their new Phipps Tuberculosis Clinic. Three
conditions carry his name. First Hamman’s syndrome is a syndrome of spontaneous
subcutaneous emphysema. He wrote a paper on it, and included there the next
conditon. That is Hamman’s sign, often wrongly called Hammond’s sign. I suppose
that is confusion with the Hammond electric organ, a popular home or dance band organ
in the 1940’s, ’50’s, and ’60’s (you can hear and see it on a rerun or the Lawrence Welk
show on PBS.) Finally there is Hamman’s Crunch, a crunching rasping sound, synchronous with
the heartbeat, heard over the precordium in spontaneous mediastinal emphysema produced by
the heart beating against air-filled tissues. Bottom line: Gable went to see a guy who knew his stuff.
And Gable must have had one heck of an infected, tooth abscessed tooth to warrant treatment by this fellow, and a public comment by Hamman himself. As the good doctor lived ten years longer than Gable, perhaps Clark should have stayed in Baltimore and under Hamman’s care.