Hans R. Held, Founder of ORCA

ORCA, died in Geneva at the age of 89. Many younger ORCA members do not know more about him than his name. Born in 1910, Hans Held, after his military service, finished his dentistry studies in the 1930s and started a promising carreer as a research worker and teacher at the Dental School of the Universtiy of Geneva. The Second World War ended this carreer abruptly, and a serious task was awaiting the young army officer. He was in charge of organizing mobile dental surgery units in the complex Swiss mountain military defence system, no easy task in a country with a pre-war road network and border threats from north, south, east, and west. He fulfilled this task brilliantly. After the war, European university life, scientific knowledge and technology were in a desolate, rudimentary state, and publications in US American dental journals had not been read for nearly a decade. In this situation Hans Held did not return to the University, but kept his kenn interest in dental science. Although he was busy in his dental office in Geneva, he studied the literature and was fascinated by the preventive impact of water-borne fluoride. While the Americans focussed on implementing fluoridation of drinking water, Hans Held was aware of the differences in mentality, culture and readiness to accept innovations between Europe and the New World. He conceived the idea of developing tablets with fluoride in a form which would simulate the caries-preventive effect of fluoride in drinking water. He dedicated part of his time to doing research into the assumed interaction and antagonism between fluoride and iodium to which critics attributed a risk of thyroid dysfunction. His results showed Obituary