Clarksville chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1857-1865, 1860-01-13
a Tough story.

nowned wag, John Phoenix, Of she Cali.
fornia Pioneer. The reader viii see thai
it records the verdict Of "Cornoners In.
quest" and in other particulars bears a
strong resemblance to some Of the tough
stories which have been circulated in this
State and generally believed:
Dr. Tushmaker was never regularly bred
as physician or surgeon, but he possess
ed naturally strong mechanical genius
and fine appetite, and finding his teeth
of great service in gratifying the latter
propensity, he concluded that he could do
, more good in the world, and create more
real happiness by putting the teeth of the
inhabitants in good order than in any other
way, so he became dentist.
He was the man that first invented the
method of placing snsall cog wheels in the
back teeth, for the more perfect mastica-
ton of food and he claimed to be the orig
inal discoverer of that method of filing
cavities with kind of putty-which be-
comiug hard directly, causes the tooth to
ache so previously that it has to be pulled
thereby giving the dentist two successive
fees for the same job.
Tushmaker was one day seated in his
office, in the city of Boston, Mass, when
stout old fellow named Bylcs presented
himself to have a back tooth drawn.
The dentist seated his patient in the
chair of torture, and opening his mouth,
discovered there an enormous tooth on the
right hand side, about as large, IS he after.
wards expressed it, "as small Polyglot
Bible" al shall have trouble with this
tooth, {" thought Tushmaker, but he clap
ped on his heaviest forceps and pulled. 1t
didn't come. Then he tried the turnscrew
exerting bis utmost strength, but the tooth
didn't move.
"Go away from here" said Tushmaker
to Byles, "and return ina week, and / will
draw that tooth out for you, or you will
know the reason why
Byles got up, clapped handkerchief
to his jaw, and put forth.
The dentist went to work, and in three
days invented an instrument which he felt
confident would pull anything. 1t was
combination fthe lever, pulley, wheel and
axle, inclined plain, wedge and screw The
casting was made, and the machine put up
in the Office over an iron chair, rendered
perfectly stationary by iron rods going
down into the foundation of the granite
building.
In week old Byles returned he was
clapped into the iron chair, the forceps
connected with the machine attached firm
ly to the tooth, and Tushmaker, station
ing himselfin the rear, took hold of lever
four feet long.
He turned it slightly-Old Byles gave
a groan and lifted his right leg Another
turn, another groan, and higher went Old
Bylcs right leg.
"What do you raise your leg for?' ask
ed the doctor.
81 can't help it" groaned the patient.
"Well, said Iushmaker, "the tooth is
bound to come now"
He turned the lever clear round, with
sudden jerk, and snapped old Byles head
clear and clean from his shoulders leav-
ing a space of four inches between their
severed parts!
They had apost mortem examination
the roots of the tooth were found to extend
down the right side, through the right leg,
aud turned up in two prongs directly un
ueT lne SOlc O1 the rlRnJ IOOU.
"No wonder" said Tushmaker, "that he
raised his leg"
The jury thought so too; but they found
the roots much decayed, and FIVE surgeons
swearing that modification would have
ensued in few months, Tushmaker was
cleared on verdict Of 'justifable homi-
eide. ;"
He was little shy of that instrument af-
terwards; but one day an old lady, feeble
and fiaccid, came in to have tooth drawn,
and thinking it would come out very easy,
Tushmaker concluded, just by way of va
riety, to try the machine.
He did so, and at the FIRST turn drew the
old lady's skeleton completely and entirely
out of her, leaving her mass of quivering
jelly in the chair
Tushmaker took her home in pillow
case. She lived seven years after that, and
they called her the India Rubber Woman"
She had suffered terribly with the rheuma-
tism, but after this occurrence never had
any pain in her bones. The dentist kept
them in a glass case
Afterwards this machine was sold to a
contractor of the Boston Custom House,
and it was found that child three years
of age could by single turn to the screw
raise stone weighing twenty five tons.
Smaller ones we're made on the same
principle, and sold to the keepers of ho-
tells and restaurants. They were advan-
tageously used for boDing turkeys.
There is no moral at all to this story,
and it is possible that the circumstances
may have become slightly exaggerated-
Of course there can be no doubt OF the
truth of the main incidents.