The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1882-10-11

ist did not repair teeth; he simply up.
rooted those that were decayed 1t is
only of late years that the dentist has
occupied a recognized position III e.
departments of minor surgery. Some
dexterity and considerable muscular
strength were the chief qualifications of
the dentists of our childhood When
patient called on one of them the dent
ist would put his finger in the patients
mouth, and after feeling around amonS
the stumps, and shaking them one after
another until howl from the patien
demonstrated that he had hold of the
right one, he would say, laconically:
" It's got to come out" Then he would
go for his Instruments These me-
chanical appliances were of very
primitive character. They consisted Of
several pairs of things like bullet molds;
those of the largest size he used on
adults and the small ones on children.
While he was engaged filing
the rust off his instruments
the sufferer had time to note
the contents of the room. On a shelf
was rope, with which nervous patients
were tied in the operating chair; on an
other chair a basin, and pitcher with a
broken handle, containing water, pre-
sumably for the purpose Of washing
away such CORY evidences Of butchery
as the operation might leave; on bro
kenlegged desk, propped up with
brick, was a skull with q cracked Jaw
bone, which was too suggestive to be
pleasant or soothing; in the window
sill the dentists library, consisting of
copy of Wedls Pathology of the Teeth,
and portion of volume of Moore's
melodies: in front Of the operating
chair, hanging on the wall. was a steel
engraving representing Napoleon on
the Island of st. Helena. The picture
was evidently put there with view of
distracting the patients attention from
thoughts of the agony in store for him.
While he was wondering if Napoleon
ever had toothache, and if he ever
burned the inside of his mouth with Gre
osote and oil of cloves in his efforts to
deaden the pain; and while he was
wishing that he could change places
with Napoleon for day or two, the
dentist grasped him by the hair, threw
his head back, inserted the can opener
in his mouth, and began cropping around
for the bad tooth. When he found it,
his usual plan was to crush it into
pieces and dig out the fragments one at
a time. During the operation the suf
ferer groaned and moaned and yeo''-
for death. When the dentist got his
graphing irons around the root of
double tooth, and braced himself up
with his foot against the wall for a
long pull, strong pull and a pull all
together, the patient thought that the
end Of all things was at hand, that an
explosion had occurred in the cellar,
and that the heavens were rolling them
selves up as a scroll, while the top of
his head was being broken off, and his
vertebra was being jammed down into
his legs. When he was calmed with a
glass OF water he found that the alarm
ing sensations he had experienced were
caused, as the dentist put it, by "thc
extraction of the molar from the alveo-
lar cavity"
The modern dentist is a different kind
Of an aggravated outrage. He has a
college diploma that he keeps hanging-
on the wall in a tin case. He usually
has nicely-furnished operating-room,
where he has an elaborate chair, work
ing on pivots and hinges, that he places
the patient in when he is pulling his
tooth, and another to be used when the
tooth is to be filled. He has hundreds
of instruments-dim augers and
gouges and scrapers, and one vile thing
that seems to make about seven hun
dred revolutions minute, and with
which he bores into the nerve of your
tooth until you feel as if your immortal
soul was being tampered with. But the
modern dentist seldom pulls a tooth.
He prefers to fill it with some gutta
percha sort of composition, or with
gold. You see the filing will,
in the course of time, come
out, and then he gets another
job putting it in again, whereas when
he pulls out tooth it ends it; the
owner of the tooth seldom cares to have
it decorated or to squander bullion on
it after it is out. He usually carries it
in his vest pocket for two or three days,
and then throws it into some vacant lot
When man has an aching tooth that
tries to push itself into prominence,
that seems to swell up and get in the
way of everything he eats, and to take
more of his thought and attention than
he can spare, he can go to the modern
dentist, who will fill him up with gas
until he imagines that he is balloon,
soaring up almost as high as the den
lists charge for the operation, and
when he comes to earth again the tooth
will be gone and there will be vacant
place in his jaw that will seem to him to
be about the size of a town lot. The
painless dentistry of to-day is less ex-
citing than the painful dentistry of the
past but it is otherwise an improve