Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1895-02-07
THAT TOOTH.
The Process OF Saving It Described by
Suffering Soul.

Scffering Soul.
The doctor stretched my mouth open
until he could see my heart beat. Then he
said cautiously, Il think VIC can save that
tooth" Running n long, inquisitive wire
into the tooth 70 depth Of about 16 inches,
be stirred up something known as q
nerve" In response to my fervont YELL
he asked, Does that hurt!' l wiped the
tears out of my eyes and said simply,
Yes" Then he gCs some Zahn-Artz
crowbars and pricd hero and there Mt tho
tooth, occasionally waking up that cussed
nerve which had been growing ever since
at its unceremonious handling. Then he
said, I'VE will have to kill the nerve first
and flll the tooth afterward"
How long will that takel" / asked
anxiously.
"Oh, you can't tell about that, he re-
piled. You can have it pulled if you pre-
fer it,, he added. Invent to the glass and
smiled at myself. 1t was as l feared. If
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 + end of it gives it wollish char
acter. A tooth out of the center of a smile
simply wrecks it. No, could not afford
to have that tooth pulled
Stimulated then by the strongest in
gredient in the male character-viz, van
ity-I resolved to take my medicine, and
SO the pact was made.
Well, the first thing to do was to kill
tho nerve. The nerve is long, starved
angleworn 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 hot iron at one
and tho same time.
The doctor toyed with this nerve of
mine for some weeks. Whenever the COM
bination was made used to kick out with
one foot and cry, "Ow!" or grab his hand
and say appealingly, "Oh, don'tl" Then
he would say, I'VE won't hurt you"
Sometimes he would lull me into q
fancied security, and would be counting
300 or saying to myself, Even this will
pass away" when all of a sudden 1000
rattlesnakos would dart their venom into
me simultaneously, a hundred mules
would kick me, a score of bumblebees
would sock their stingers into me, and the
world would come to an end. Then |
would know he had stepped ON my nerve
with the "teaser. The "teaser'' is the
boss "fceler," being fine as a horsehair
and of the most undoubted yell producing
power.
After long while the nerve capitulat-
ed. / had lost II pounds in the process,
but a great gain had been made The
tooth was now as tender as 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
1egan 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 a chisel into one of them l almost
tainted. was kept in continuous cold
sweat for weeks thinking about it before l
went, going through with it while l was
at the office and thinking about it after /
left
After he had amused himself by digging
and blasting out lot of little galleries in
the upper part of the tooth he began to
treat" the root apertures.
This is most ingenious and refined
cruelty and by some dentists is preferred
even to nerve killing The process is to
first feel around with the 'teaser' on the
sensitive roots, next to put little cot
ton dipped in earbolic or nitric acid, oreo.
sote 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 some cotton filling is stuffed in,
and you are told to come back in three
days That night you wake at 12 O'Clock
with your soul in arms and eager for the
fray. You dig out all the filling and
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 tho 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 ont. 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, glad
some joy pervades your entire system
The birds sing, the skies are bright roses
bloom, men and women are better, the
whole world has changed in the twinkling
of an eye.
The day the roots are filled you go home
and kiss your mother and eat your supper
ON both sides of your mouth For, mark
you, when tooth is being filled, the jaw
it adorns is practically side tracked until
the crucifixion 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 regular tooth
cement. l lay back in the chair and the
tap, tap of the hammer and punch sound
ed as melodious as joaquin Miller's line of
A woodpecker pounded pine top shell.
was wrapped in dream of delicious
joy. Not like some of my acqnaintances
would l be forced to launch myself into
society with fragmentary, misft smile
No indeed. And when the whole thing
was through 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 went to the glass and smiled
Veni, vidi, vici.-Ernest McGaffey in Chi
cago Herald.