American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-01-16
Maryels Of Chinese Dentistry.

Roaming in quest of novelty through
that mine of marvcls, Chinese city, we
were II witness the other day of IA strange
but not uncommon scene We had halted
in front of the stall Ola streetapothecary,
surgeon and general practitioner, and
We're turning over with our ewes his stock
of simples, dragons'teeth, tigers.claws
and like drugs used as ingredients in the
native pharmacopwla, when along came a
man, holding his hand up to his jaw and
apparently in great pain. He sat down
by the doctor and explained to him that
he was suffering with the tDothache, to
get rid of which he would like to have
his tooth removed. The doctor opened
his patients mouth and inspected the
aching tooth: then he took a small phial
from his stock of medicines, and into the
palm of his hand he shook a few scruples
of a pink-colored powder. He next
licked his finger and dipped it into the
powder, and inserting this into the man s
mouth rubbed it on the aching tooth and
gum. He repeated this three or four
times, and then concluded by turning
the patients head upside down; when,
to the no small establishment of many of
the bystanders, among whom was appar-
emily the man himself, the tooth dropped
out and fell on the ground. The doctor
then asked him if he had felt any pain to
which he replied that he had not, and
the payment of small fee brought the
scance to ii close. At our application
the tooth was picked up and very civilly
exhibited to us by the owner himself,
and was evidently fresh from human
Jaw, though there had not been the
slightest effusion of blood from the
mouth. The thought had naturally sug-
gested itself TO us that the whole thing
| was a hoax and that the patient was an
accomplice; but If so the doctor was no
novice at sleight of hand, and the eX-
preston of astonishment on the ether
mans face when he found his tooth gone
was as perfect specimen of histrionic
emotion as has ever been our lot to be-
hold.
That night we had visions of large
establishment in Regent street with an
enormous placard announcing Painless
Dentistry" over the door, and crowds of
dukes and duchesses mounting and de-
scending our stairs to have their teeth
extracted by some mysterious process
imported from China and known to our
selves alone. Next day we proceeded to
rummage through our Chinese medical
library and see what we could hunt up
on the subject of dentistry. The result
Of this search we generously offer to our
readers, thus perhaps sacrificing the
chance of securing a colossal fortune.
In the :" New Collection of Tried Pre-
Scriptions," a sort of domestic medicine
published for the use of families in cases
of emergency when no physician is at
hand, we find the following remarks:
METHOD FOR EXTRACTING ACHING TEErn.-A
tooth ought not to he taken out, for by doing
the remaining teeth will be loosened. If the pain
Is very acute and interferes with eating or drink
il should be left. Take Dream about ten ounces
in weight, rip il open and insert one-tenth of an
ounce OF powdered arsenic Then sew up the
body and hang ii up in the wind, where it is not
exposed to the sun accessible to cats and rats.
hoar- frost will have formed upon the scales of
the fish. Preserve this. using for each tooth
about as much covers one scale. When re-
ter. press it with the finger to the aching
place and let it stick there: Then let the patient
cough and the tooth will fall ont of itself. This
prescription has been tested by DR.. Wang.
ANOTHER METuoD.-Take a head of garlic and
pound it up to pulp. Mix it thoroughly with
bones. and apply il to the suffering part In a
little while the tooth will drop ont.
1t will be noticed that the above pre-
scriptions are neither without one or
other of two characteristics always to be
found in the composition of Chinese
remedies. In the first recipe the ingre-
dients are simple enough, and all that is
required is time, seven days being neces-
sary for its preparation. Now as it is
very unlikely that anyone would collect
the ''hoar-frost" deposit from the scales
of "A Dream stuffed with arsenic in an
ticipa'ion of a future toothache, and as
he would probably have got well long
before the expiration of the seven days
il he set to work TO make his medicine
only when the tooth began to ache, the
genius of the physician and the efficacy
of his recipe are alike secure from at
tack. In the second case, the very ex-
istence of one of the drugs mentioned is,
to say the least, apocryphal; and al
though such can be purchased at the
shops of native druggists, any complaint
on the part of duped patient would be
met by the simple answer that the white
dragons bones he bought could not pos
sibly have been genuine.-CelesttaI En-