St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-05-25
PAINLESS DENTISTRY.

y feature of always unfailing interest
to both great and small at the state fair
IS the ltinerant dentist who loudly
pr0claimS his ability to pull out any
body'S teeth without pain, and for 25
cents apiece. No one has a right to
question his power in this direction, but
that people should be found willing to
let him exercise it on them shows how
deep-seated still is popular ignorance
II imprOVidence. A tooth is a tooth,
whether ii aches or not; and why, in the
nineteenth century. men and women
should enthusiastically part with what
they can never replace, because it
causes them a little temporary annoy
ance, any more than they should cut off
their legs TO relieve a pain in their toes,
is a %conundrum not easy to answer.
And yet, if the crowd in attendance is
fairly big, the" ltinerant dentist can keep
busy from morning till night, and vic
tim after victim will mount his chair,
point out the tooth which seems to be
in trouble. but which in half the cases
may be the wrong one, throws back his
head, and in an instant rejoins his
friends with a grin of triumph on his
face, as though he had downed a vicious
enemy.
If there is any explanation of such
phenomena outside of absolute and sod
den stupidity, it will be found in the
general unwIllingness to submit to the
tortdres of the dental room. A recent
number of Punch had a picture Of a
young woman in a dentists chair on
the occasion of her annual visit to the
family f~unctionary. and 1t called the
sketch Moments When Life Is Really
Worth Living" because the dentist
standing by is represented as saying,
"Well, my dear young lady, | have
looked very carefully, and there is abso-
lutely nothing for me to do this year."
This is a touch of nature which makes
the whole world kin. The theory of
modern dentistry is that the crafts pur-
pose should be not to remove the teeth,
but to preserve them. This is all verv
fine, but there is no small number of
people who would rather go through life
entirely molarleSS and inciSorlesS than
endure the agonies which accompany
the drill and the triphammer. Other
ling nv NOuOls Cdlly liOI6 SAQuiSllo
suffering with them, but they are not
the things which are voluntarily sub
mitted to. 1t may hurt more to have
ones arm amputated, but this is an ex-
ceptional experience, undergone with
extreme reluctance. But the horrors of
dental surgery seem in this day to be
the common lot of everybody who can
afford to pay for them, and demand a
degree of heroiSm which would suffice
to carry a soldier oyer the enemy's ram.
parts.
There are people now who claim that
they have devised a system of painless
dentistry, and by which they mean not
dentistry painless to the dentist, but
painless to the patient. If they have
they are benefactors of mankind, and
are entitled to a crown of golden dol
lars Unfortunately, the only way of
testing their claims is to try them, and
II they are false prophets the conse-
quences may be rather expensive.
Those who are brave enough to venture
on the experiment are like medieval
explorers, who risked their safety on
unknown seas at nee for their w and
their fellows good. Anybody who goes
through a course of painless dentistry
himself. and, surviving, points out the
easy road to his friends, will not rank
low in the list of phi%lanthroDiStS.