The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-07-24
WOMEN AT THE DENTISTS.
VISIT TO AN INSTITUTION PA
TRONIZED BY WOMEN.
Startling Effects of Gas Now and
Then-Methods and Prices
at the College.

Doctor said the woman with the
lonely, hollow expression around her
lips denoting a physical lack of some
kind, II am going out of town now
and 1 can't possibly wait to have a set
prepared, and you will have to give me
some ready made"
Madam" said the polite doctor, you
can get almost anything at the depart
nent stores, but you will find that there
were never two mouths that were ex-
actly alike, and you viii not be able
to find set of teeth at either the stores
or this college,
That is somewhat the nature of a d.
alogue which occurs frequently at what
may be called the most popular dental
establishment for women in New York
City.
There is no question about its pop
ularity, if popularity can be gagged by
numbers, for it is visited annually by
some 1000 or 5000 women of all ages,
classes and descriptions 1t is the New
York College of Dentistry, which occu-
pies a. large building on Twenty-third
street, near Third avenue, and opens
the door of it's infirmary to the public
price of the material and a small bonus
in addition, which helps to defray the
running expenses of that part of the
institution.
They are not all women who patron
ize the establishment, but the greater
number of the patients are women per-
haps because they possess some little
more natural vanity than men and pay
iaps for financial reasons, because they
have less ready money at command and
prefer to ecenomize and pay the small
price asked for the work by which the
students obtain their practical knowl-
edge of dentistry.
The infirmary is open every day in
the year, Sundays and holidays except
ed, from 9 O'Clock to 1, and there are
always students, professors and pa
tients in goodly numbers in attend
ance.
This is what may be called an off
season of the year, and some of the
patients, they say at the college, are
also away for the summer, the latter
perhaps at Newport or in Europe, for
the patients do not by any means be-
long entirely to the poorer classes of
people. They are, to use the popular
New York expression, Fifth
people. They do not form large pro-
portion of the visitors, but there is
goodly number of them who like the
careful work of the students. And they
still more like the genuine bargain
prices which appeal even to so-ca4led
eXtravagant Americans.
But a large number of the women
patients are pretty, bright, fresh-look-
ing girls who work in the shops, seam
stresses, servants some women of the
very poorest classes, as well as women
in moderate circumstances living at
home, who cannot be classified.
Arrangements for treatment are not
difficult to make. The would-be pa
1ient enters the infirmary, large clean
room on the ground floor which has
none of the unpleasantness to be found
frequently in the dispensary. Two dem
tai chairs stand on either side of a desk
in the front of the ROOM AT the rear
is another desk with a young woman
behind it, to which the visitor goes
and pays % cents and receives yell
low examination blank. The next step
is to one of the chairs, where the teeth
are carefully examined. There are
pads of pink, white and green lying on
the desk, each having upon it novel
diagram which might represent dia-
mond necklace set with stones, large
and small but which is supposed to
represent the upper and lower jaw of
the human mouth with the first and
second teeth. AS the examiner pro-
crosses with his work he marks upon
one of the diagrams the location of the
teeth to be treated. If the teeth are
to be filled he uses white slip, and
when he finishes~adds to it the date of
the examination, the number, and, with
the price to be charged, his signature.
you will have four amalgam filings,
he says to one patient who leaves the
chair, two gold filings, and the teeth
must be cleaned, altogether So"
If the patient is ready and has white
slip, she goes up stairs Immediately to
the department where the operating is
done. Ifsshe is not ready, she leaves her
slip, and when she comes again gives the
date of the examination. receives the
slip again, and the work is done.
The operating or filing is the chief
work done. Every dentist emphasizes
the fact nowadays that his work is not
to destroy but to save, and all his eff
forts are toward that end. Hence the
operating room is the largest in the
building and occupies the full 1O0-foot
length of the top floor, with skylights
in the roof above, making it possible to
work at every chair in the room on the
darkest day.
IN THE OPERATING ROOM.
It was what is called a light day, even
for this time of the year, the other morn
ing when the reporter visited the operat-
ing room. There were perhaps half a
dozen young women in different chairs
two or three women somewhat older
besides a nicely dressed young colored
woman, whose open mouth disclosed a
set of teeth which apparently were not
in great need of the dentists services.
The patients, as they arrive, are as
signed each to a student-first, second or
third year men, according to the diff
Guilty of the work. That student is the
practitioner Of the patient until the
work is finished, which may not be until
after several appointments have been
made and filled, as with a regular dent
asst That there are patients of the in
Urinary who have been making regular