Dentist

Raymond H. Woods, 80, a longtime Collingswood dentist, died Friday at Virtua-West Jersey Hospital Voorhees from cancer. A Westmont resident for about 17 years, he previously was a lifelong Collingswood resident. He was a 1936 graduate of Collingswood High School. Dr. Woods established a practice in Collingswood after World War II and continued to see patients until retiring in 1990. "He enjoyed what he did so much that he hated to give it up," said his son Raymond H. Woods Jr. "Toward the end he did a lot for the elderly.

John Patrick Looby, 84, of Upper Darby, a dentist and professor of oral surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, died Sunday at Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital, Darby. For 23 years, until 1973, he was chief of the department of oral surgery at the Dental School at Penn. He joined the faculty in 1932 as an instructor in dental surgery and retired in 1977 as a professor. From 1932 until he retired in 1985, he had a private dental practice, first at 36th and Sansom Streets and later at 47th and Locust Streets.

Dr. David K. Waldman, 94, of West Philadelphia, a Center City dentist who brightened patients' smiles for almost 60 years, died Thursday in the Beaumont Retirement Community in Bryn Mawr. Dr. Waldman, who was born and raised in West Philadelphia, graduated in 1926 in the commercial course in the last all-male class at West Philadelphia High School. After working for his father in the family rug business - he used a wagon to transport rugs from the port to his grandfather's store on Bank Street - he decided manual labor was not for him and wanted to be a dentist.

Dr. Dave Link, the 76ers' dentist, shrugged and said it must have been his turn. In a season that has included a slashed heel (Charles Barkley), a bruised spleen (Barkley), cellulitis (also Barkley), iritis (Cliff Robinson), a wrecked knee (Jeff Ruland) and aching feet (Andrew Toney), the Sixers' latest medical flare-up involves a cap problem. No, no, not that cap. On the first play of last night's 114-103 victory over Golden State, Roy Hinson lost the caps built over his four upper front teeth.

Charles N. Mahjoubian, 96, of Paoli, a Main Line dentist for 50 years and champion of justice for the Armenian people, died of pulmonary failure Monday at Paoli Memorial Hospital. Dr. Mahjoubian was born in Konya, Turkey, to Armenian parents. In 1915, when he was was 8, he said, he watched as Ottoman Turks herded thousands of Armenians through his village on the way to the desert. There, according to Dr. Mahjoubian and others, they were killed or starved to death. His family escaped and immigrated to the United States when he was 16. In the 1990s he self-published a book about the killings and the later persecution of the Armenians under the Soviets.

Philip Priestly Haines, 85, of Willistown, a dentist on the Main Line for more than 40 years, died Sunday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania of complications from surgery for a subdural hematoma. Dr. Haines grew up in Atlantic City. His Quaker ancestor John Haines arrived in America in 1679 and lived for a time in a cave along the Rancocas Creek. After graduating from Atlantic City High School, where he played football and basketball, Dr. Haines served in the Army Air Force during World War II. He piloted B-24s in Europe and North Africa.

It was a Friday, dentist Richard DeForno recalled, when the police walked into his office carrying a large plastic container. Inside, sloshing around in a couple of quarts of formaldehyde, was a human skull. They stuck it in DeForno's refrigerator. Later, after the staff had left for the day, DeForno began an examination of the skull, which would give Caln Township police clues in identifying a decomposed body found off Route 282. His goal was to provide a complete dental portrait of the skull, including a bite impression, which can be as identifying as a fingerprint.

Samuel S. Platt Jr., 80, a retired Haddonfield dentist and World War II veteran who was awarded the Silver Star for treating the wounded in a German town under heavy artillery fire, died of complications from pneumonia Tuesday at his home at the Evergreens retirement community in Moorestown. Dr. Platt earned military decorations, including one of the Army's highest honors, as a young second lieutenant in charge of a medical corps serving throughout Europe during the war. On Feb. 18, 1945, Dr. Platt led his unit into Schankweiler, Germany, and helped treat and evacuate the wounded while under fire.

For a self-described "one-chair dentist" who referred all but routine cases to specialists, David S. Link managed to earn himself a measure of celebrity. Active in several service projects in the Main Line communities along City Avenue, Link over three decades parlayed his small Wynnefield practice into a call-in dental-health radio program as well as posts as the official dentist for St. Joseph's University and the Philadelphia 76ers. He counted among his friends doctors, broadcasters and Julius Erving, the 76ers retired star forward.

Dr. Dallas C. Hess, a Jenkintown dentist whose plain, simple, unapologetic approach to life drew patients and pals to him, died Wednesday. He was 64 and lived in Meadowbrook, Montgomery County. It followed that Dallas Hess would become a dentist. His father, Lawrence Hess, was a prominent member of the dental profession, a professor at Temple University's Dental School and active in the dental societies. When he started out in the profession, it used to get his goat once in a while when one of the older heads would refer to him as "Larry's kid. " He certainly wasn't anyone but his own man to people who knew Dallas Hess.