The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1873-03-13
ETHER.
Divested Of its Terrors

l have fallen in love
I frankly confess it. Yes; !, an old
married woman, whose tin wedding is
already a thing OF the past around
whose knee clus er dear olive branches,
and in whose curls the silver threads are
fast outnumbering the brown ones--l
have lately fallen desperately in love.
l will make a clean breast Of it. The
name of the late object of my idolatry
is-Ether.
For more than year I have said to
myself almost every day, II must have
out my upper teeth and get new set. u
Time and again have I appointed my
painful visit to the dentist, and as often
has something interviewed to prevent.
Yet, as week after week my old teeth
broke, and crumbled, and fell away,
felt the unwisd2m of procastination
And still, as mortals will, l procrasti
mated. Saith the country parsons, "b
the make of the universe, every dut
delayed grows in bulk, and weight, an
painful pressure. He might hav
added (but he didnt,) "this is pre-emi
nently true of teeth that ought to be
pulled"
took a sudden resolve, the other
evening, to go the next day and have
the thing done slept on it over night,
and rose in the morning more bravely
determined than ever After eating Il
hearty breakfast, with the innate con-
seriousness that, if I carried out my
plans, it was the last meal I should
really enjoy for many days, I arranged
my room rs for hospital, shut up the
organ and sewing machine with pre-
monition that neither music nor sewing
would have any charms for me on my
return, and, with "gudeman as es-
cort, set my face as flint toward the
dentists. We are assembled at length
in solemn concave at the dentists office.
There is the family physician, whose
face is that of dear friend from its as
sociation with pain relieved and sickness
minstered unto, and no less dear be-
cause we sadly remember those whom
his best efforts failed to save; there is
the little, resolute dentist and his sensi-
BILE, lovely wife there is the "gude-
man" and there is poor nervous me,
my courage fast oozing out at my finger
tips, in this room so forcibly reminding
one of torture-chamber of the inquisi-
tion, with its wicked-looking instru.
ments and glass jars of teeth. Thev all
see and feel that my teeth are very
bad set to pull. and if they don't say it,
l see it in their looks, and know they
only refrain to encourage me. For out
of all the sixteen molars, grinders, GUS
pids, bicuspids and what not that once
adorned my upper jaw, only two things
remain that can be called teeth, though
none have ever been drawn. Tho rest
are stumps and must be- dug out.
EITHER or chloroform? is the ques.
ton.
Ether" advises the dentist. as be-
ing the safe thing.
EITHER" echoes the doctor present,
at my request, to administer it.
I sit down in the great red velvet |
chair and look upon the beautiful world |
without, while they prepare the bag,
and sponge, and lint, and Instruments.
1t is a strange feeling to know you are
going to sleep so soundly that you will
not rouse even under torture. I feel a
sense of nervous depression. II reminds
me of the last long sleep, and feel. as
l ought to bid them all good-by. II is
O comfort to hear the doctor assurance.
"we will take care of you, and to feel
his finger on my pulse as | commence
inhaling the ether. He will see that all
is right.
How that ether tingles to the very
tips of my fingers and toes. There is a
choking sensation, too, at first, very un.
pleasant, and can seem to hear nv
heart beating in great, loud thumps,
But the doctors finger is on my pulse
and he will know if anything is amiss
I do not seem to grow at all sleepy
never was wider awake in my life
though keep nv eyes psrsistsdtly
---A---..'