The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1895-08-10
THAT TOOTH.
Ihc Process of Saving 1t Described by n
Suffering Soul.

~
Suffering Soul.
The doctor stretched my mouth open
until he could see my heart beat. Then he
said cautiously, Il think we can save that
tooth. Running a long, fnquisitive wire
into the tooth to a depth of about 16 inches,
he stirred up something known as a
nerve In response to my fervent yell
he asked, Does that hurtf' | wiped the
tears out of my eyes and said simply,
Yes" Then he got some Iahn-Artzt
crowbars and pried here and there at the
tooth, occasionally waking up that cussed
nerve which had been growing ever since
at its unceremonious handling. Then he
said, 1--WE will have to kill the nerve first
and fill the tooth ~afterward."
How long will that takeS" 1 asked
anxiously.
"Oh, you can't tell about. that, " he re-
piled. You can have it pulled If you pre-
fer it,, " he added. went to the glass and
smiled at myself. 1t was as l feared. II
that tooth was yanked out, my smile was
ruined.
There is nothing so unpleasant as a fore
shortened smile. The absence of a tooth
at eth r end of it gives it a wolfsh char
acter. A tooth out of the center of a smile
simply wrecks it. No, l could not afford
10 have that tooth pulled.
Stimulated then by the strongest in.
gredient in the male characterize, van
ity-I resolved to tax my medicine, and
so the pact was made.
Well, the first thing to do was to kill
tho nerve. The nerve is u long, starved
a%ngleworn growth that starts in the tooth
somewhere and grows down and up with
three distinct tentacles or feelers. One of
these connects with your brain, one with
your heart and the other with your soul.
Every time the nerve is touched an electric
shock goes to each of these terminal points,
and you feel as If you had been shot, stab
bed and burned with a hot iron at one
and the same time.
The doctor toyed with this nerve of
mine for some weeks. Whenever the com
b~ination was made l used to kick out with
one foot and cry, "Ow!' or grab his hand
and say appealingly, "Oh, don't!' Then
he would say, 1--WE won't hurt you"
Sometimes he would lull me into a
fancied security, and l would be counting
300 or saying to myself, Even this will
pass away" when all of a sudden 4, 900
rattlesnakos would dart their venom into
me simultaneously, a hundred mules
would kick me, "a Gcore of bumblebees
would sock their stingcrs into me, and the
NOTlu WOlIu CO1lc TO All CIu. linen /
would know he had stepped on my nerve
with the 'teaser." The ''teaser' is the
boss ''feeler, " being fine as a horsehair
and of the most undoubted yell producing
power.
After q long while the nerve capitulat-
ed. l had lost II pounds in the process,
but a great gain had been made. The
tooth was now as tender as "a mush and
milk pOultice, and even to tickle it with
an ostrich tip would produce exquisite
agony. He used to soothe it from time to
time with various lotions, and finally he
began to quarry out the dead bone a little.
This was grewSOme work, for there were
tender places all over the tooth, as thick
as spots on a leopard, and every time he
jammed n chiscl into one of them / almost
tainted. | was kept in a continuous cold
sweat for weeks thinking about it before l
went, going through with it while | was
at the office and thinking about it after l
left.
After he had amused himself by digging
and blasting out Il lot of little galleries in
the upper part of the tooth he began to
treat" the root apertures.
This is a most ingenious and refined
cruelty and by some dentists is preferred
oven to nerve killing. The process is to
lTat letl AROUND WITH Tie tOuSGf Oh inc
sensitive roots, next to put a little cot
ton dipped in carbolic or nitric acid, creo.
soto or turpentine around the "teaser"
and stick it away down into the same
place. This hurts powerfully. 1t cleanses
the roots Of impurities, though. A lighted
match would be less painful, but the aper-
ture is not large enough to admit one
After this somec cotton filling is stuffed in,
and you are told to come back in three
days That night you wake at IL o'clock
with your soul in arms and eager for the
fray" You dig out all the filling n
pace up and down the room saying at in
%tervals, "Oh, gosh, why didn't l have it
pulled?'
Then you go back, and the treatment is
renewed. The doctor varied the upper fill
ing by putting in hard rubber filling after
awhile. This is put in soft and hot and
hardens when it gets cold.
When you wake up with this hurting
you at night, you can't get it out. A red
hot hairpin may get some of it out, but
you are liable to glance off and get your
gums into the scar and yellow.
When the roots are ready to fill, a glad
some joy pervades your entire system,
The birds sing, the skies are bright, roses
bloom, men and women are better, the
WnOle WOfiu Has CnaHseu III Inc uNlnkllnQ
of an eye.
The day the roots arc filled you go home
and kiss your mother and eat your supper
on both sides of your mouth. For, mark
you, when a tooth is being filled, the jaw
it adorns is practically side tracked until
the cruci1iXion is over.
The last scene in the drama was when
the doctor put in the top filling. The roots
had already been plugged with a red putty
which had hardened into a regular tooth
cement, l lay back in the chair, and tho
tap, tap Of the hammer and punch sound
ed as melodious as joaquin Miller's line OF
A woodpecker pounded a pine top shell.
l was wrapped in "a dream of delicious
joy. Not like some of my acquaintance
would be forced to launch myself into
society with a fragmentary, misfit smile.
No indeed. And when the whole thing
was through l shook Docks hand, and he
told me that he had never meant all along
to SO kill me by inches, but that dentistry
was dentistry.
Then l went to the glass and smiled,
Veni, vidi, vici. Ernest McGaffey in Chi
cago Herald.
Preserving the Peace.