Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-22
THE DENTIST KNOWS

passed out OF the roSopCOn room, Is one Oh
my runaways. You may have recognized
| that he Is another OF the army and a man
OF more than average distinction as SOL
der. He was under fire many times in the
civil war, in Indian campaigns and in Cuba.
He was breveted on two occasions for gal
lantry in action. He is. OF course. therefore.
| a man OF undaunted courage. And yet this
| is the ninth successive time he has come to
me to make arrangements to have his teeth
attended to. only to fall down on his APP
pointments eight straight times ana there
Is little doubt in the world that he will not
turn up here tomorrow. when he Is due
for his first sitting.
Instead Of coming. he'll probably write
me most civil letter. saying that he's been
suddenly called out of the city, or that
illness In his family will prevent his keep
ing his appointment with me. or that stress
OF work will make>it out Of the question for
, him to be here at the hour named or that
circumstances beyond his control, ETC.. etc.
In some way or another he'll dodg his teeth
fixing engagement. that is certain. I could
see 1t In his eye today. just as 1 saw it in
his eye so many times before after 1 found
out that he belonged to the association Of
male dentist dodgers. He has sought that
bauble, reputation, in the lannon's
mouth, but when it comes to, letting dem
fist seek and remedy trouble in his own
mouth. his nerve is simply not up to it.,
ana ne caves.
His case Is typical of many men of
proven parts and courage who simply can
not bring themselves to the point Of hav-
ing dentist attend to their teeth. Not
one woman in fifty lodges an appointment
with a dentist after she makes up her mind
that she is going to have her teeth attended
to. 1t may be that women are more i'm
pervious to pain than men are. That has
been claimed by scientists. and believe the
claim to be true. 1t may be that feminine
vanity has something to do with it; in
respect to this mean. that a woman will
not allow her teeth to go neglected because
OF her naturally greater regard for her
looks. But whatever the cause may be,
when woman gets her mind firmly made
up that she's going to have her teeth fixed
she keeps her appointment with the dem
list and marches up to the chair like a lit
tie major, and nothing in the way of tor
ture or misery is going to stop her from
keeping the succeeding appointments until
the job Is finished.
I've had prospective male patients who
stepped right out Of the chair before q
pick was applied to their teeth for exami-
nation purposes and bolted for 1t as II they
were trying to get away from a fire or the
structor in music. was here only a few
weeks ago. He had five or six cavities
that were In serious need of attention, and
the affected teeth were aching most OF
my chair and plant with a most furtive
expression. and I could see the beads
standing out on his forehead. He cate
chised me at great length as to how much
pain would probably inflict upon him, and
when I tried to impress it upon him that
| modern dental surgery was such that the
pain was reduced to a minimum I could
plainly see that he thought I was falsify-
ing.
Finally, however, he made an appoint
ment for the following afternoon. Some
what to my surprise. he kept the appoint
| ment, but his state Of nervous tension was
81 In Y,fff fyr1 To
ming three or four bars of some peculiar
tune. and his eyes rolled around In a
strange Sort Of way, and OCCASIONALLY he
shot glance Of the most extreme appre-
hensiOn at the chair and tool chest. Final
ly, with a groan, he sank back into the
chair. I turned my back upon the chair for
half moment to get some Of my examina-
ton tools In readiness. and then heard a
sudden creaking of the chair, and then a
mighty bound. and when turned my music
instructor was half way out of the door
and going like the wind. I didn't even call
after him. I knew that he was fairy stam-
peded and panic-struck, and that 1t would
be no use. On the following morning 1 re-
ceived brief note from him, In which he
inclosed a check for an amount which he
said he hoped would repay me for the ex-
animation had made of his teeth-a check,
by the way. which I promptly returned to
him. for I had done no work. at all upon
him. not even In the way Of an examination.
see him occasionally on the street and he
face is still 'swollen from his inflamed teeth.
and suppose he will go on suffering in
definite misery before his state gets TO
such a point when he will simply have to
submit to attention at dentists hands,
"A deadly dislike which most men pos
sess Of having the nerves Of their teeth
treated for filling operations causes them to
sacrifice to the extracting tools teeth that
| have merely minor cavities, and that a wo-
man would not think of giving UP under
any consideration. I have wasted more
good breath trying to argue it out with sup
posedly reasonable men who wanted to
have Ave or six all but perfect teeth ex.
tracted for little or no reason than could
begin to tell about. Only a few months
ago a smart young real estate man came
to me with five slightly aching upper front
teeth. His teeth were aching owing to q
slight condition of acid fermentation and
they were perfectly capable of being treat
ed. But he wouldn't listen to any idea of
having them treated.
Fill me up full Of gas he demanded,
and yank EN- all out and stick six false
ones in there on plate I don't care a
hang for looks. I want to get rid of this
misery, and I'm not going to have those
little needle tools of yours clawing around
the nerves of my teeth
Il spent half an hour trying to make him
see 1t differently, but it was no use, and
finally fatty declined to extract five such
fine teeth. He went away in hun and
had them removed elsewhere.
Men who have teeth capable Of being
crowned nicely Will balk at the idea OF
having the nerves Of such teeth killed, and
in four cases out of five demand that the
teeth be extracted with the aid Of gas and
false teeth put in their place.
Then there are plenty of men who work
what we call the proxy dodge. They'll visit
a dentist and tell him that a friend OF
theirs has such and such the matter with
his teeth and ask all sorts of questions as
| to what can be done to such teeth in q
dental way. OF course, no dentist can tell
anything about the requirements of teeth
| needing attention until he looks at them
but the proxy players are an insistent lot
their main point being to find out In that
| roundabout way just how much pain there
| is going to be involved in the work on their
own teeth, supposing they muster up the
nerve to have that work started.
Taking 1t all in all, men are just about
| four times as difficult patients in dent
| lists chair as women. and some of the most
eminent dentists have come to so thorough
an appreciation Of this that they make
their charges for treating male patients
considerably higher than their charges for
performing the same sort of work for
| women.
Men do not respond to the effects OF
oxygen, Or as it is commonly called, gas,
as women do. Men appear to have natu-
raj and instructive adherence for any sort
of anaesthesa which women do not pos
| sess. Although the man who wants pain
| less job done will talk glibly enough in ad-