Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1888-03-16
DENTISTS N CHINA.


u@A'e and Deceive Their Ix.
norant Customers.
= had always supposed previous to
.ny arrival In China that the native
'chtiss extracted teeth simplv nv
means OF their tbuml and fore-finper
which. by constant practice. had b..
come phenomenaily strong. Even aft.
er had been some years in pakin
,ouha English residents there who
nrmly believed this, and myself did
,'h'il my curiosity upon the subiec,
became SO great that determined tn
ma out the real truth of a work ~
some difficulty and time. A friend n
mad with me during my Investigation
at first believed that the dentists realJv
u. ald extract teeth with their fingers.
Inc custom and modus operandi Of
Inc native dentists of Pekin are
as follows: The dental court ia
held in large. open SQUARE
near the center of the city. ARRANGED
around this square are rows Of booths
IN which the dentist operates upon the
uhruly molar. For weeks and weeks
we haunted this place. but the dem
tists were always sharp enough to
prevent us making any invcstiga-
ton into their methods After con
siderable time had been spent in this
unsatisfactory kind of work we found
an Old practitioner who. aftcr con-
siderable persuasion and the promise
OF sood payment consented to let us
Doth into the secret of Chinese dem
ustry. Even when we met by An
pointment he demurred, not wanting
10 let the foreign devils know too
much. But little gold soon over
came all objections and under a
promise OF the strictest secrecy during
our stay in the country the old dem
list told us the following:
No Chinaman ever extracted a
tooth with his fingers He could not
Go 1t aud knows too much to try. We
never extract tooth unless it is very
loose. and even then we use this, and
ne showed small iron implement
about three inches long and one-half
an inch wide. with V-shaped cut in
one emu. With this concealed in our
hand we Push and pry the tooth.
meantime pretending to rub powder
on it to loosen it Whom the tooth has
been sufficiently worked. quick mo-
ton of the hand and it is out No one
ever sees this instrument and we en-
courage the belief that the fingers
alone are used in extracting the tooth.
When person comes to see US with a
toothache. and the tooth is too firm
~ set for US to get it out, we
tell him that some devil in the
shape Of worm has got into his tooth
and that 10 take the tooth out will be
dangerous, but we will take the an
noying worm out and so give relief
This is done. and when the worm is
out the man goes away happy
"This was all that the old man
would tell us then. After a number
of visits to the dental court l was for
tunate enough to be present when a
woman came in to be treated for
tooth ache. l carefully noted each
motion of the dentist. and Judge of
my surprise when saw him apparent
~ take a living worm about as large
as grain of rice out of the tooth. A
visit to my first informant, an old
man, elected the following: You
are getting bad devils. just as l
said You would if you knew too much.
but little more wickedness can not
hurt you. as you are bad devils, any
way. The worms that you thought
were taken out of the woman's tooth
were not worms at all. In the first
place no dentist has more than one or
two real live worms. and as these can
not live long except in damp place
they are kept in a jar of water. so that
in case any one is inclined to doubt we
TO not actually take them out of the
teeth they can be shown as proof.
What we really do is to take an instru-
ment like this (and he showed us
long doubl headed steel instrument,
with a little spoon-shaped bowl at each
nd). Into one end of this instrument
we place piece of pith. so made as to
exactly resemble worm. This end
we hold concealed in our hand With
tho other end we push and scrape
around the aching tooth. meanwhile
sprinkling listlo powder in the mouth
and in the tootA After few mo-
ments we quickly turn the instrument
around. bringing the end having the
pith worm concealed in it into the pa
tents mouth, and there we have the
worm.
From other sources / learned that
false teeth are known to some extent,
but they are usually made of wood or
metal and fastened into place by
means OF little clamps fixed around
rhe remaining teeth. ~ T. 1ete-