The Pleasures of Dentistry.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 206, 4 June 1887, Page 3

The Pleasures of Dentis try.

We are told that the late Nero, upon an occasion when he had wearied the pleasure of burning Christians, and had an unusually bigoted believer left over, cried to his assistants :— " Drag him to the nearest dentist's office and I will pull his teeth." After that the Emperor never employed any other form of torture, and it is said that he often wept to think thab his cherished uncle, Caligula, had been deprived of so acute a pleasure as he derived from the practice. The ancient tyrants, however, were not able to extract as much enjoyment from the processes of dentistry as the modern professors of that art, by reason of their lesser knowledge of anatomy as well as by the inferiority of their instruments. Nero, for instance, did not know just where to touch a nerve in order to make his victim jump the highest, and neither did he have a sufficiently delicate instrument to reach the exact spot without lessening the acuteness of the sensation by the irritation of other parts. The modern dentist, however, has his art down so tine that he is able, while deluding his victim into a sense of security by the narration of the last joke in " Fuck," or the latest witticism of " Life," to suddenly touch a nevve centre that will transmit a shock of six or seven hundred horse-power from the patient's eyeballs to the tips of his toes in the thousandth part of a second. One dentist is said to have performed this feat -with such gratifying success upon a sick woman that he died of jjoy. Another advantage that the modern dentist enjoys, which was denied the Roman inquisition, is the buzzwheel suspended above the operating chair and worked by the professional pedal extremity. The ecstasy of a dentist after he has thrust a gimlet operated by the buzzwheel clear through the roots of a victim's tooth, and is grinding it with his foot at the rate of 3,000 revolutions per minute, varies in direct ratio with the expression of agony on the other's countenance ; and scientific authorities declare that if the dentist had sufficient vital farce to continue the exercise for more than four minutes and thirty-three seconds consecutively, the extravagance of his glee would undoubtedly impair his reason. But) it is, perhaps, from the actual putting of the gold into the tooth that the dentist extracts the most satisfaction. Having drilled a hole from the top of the tooth through the jaw and as far into the bone as possible, the dentist gags his victim with two or three napkins, fastens a rubber apron into the back of the throat with a steel clasp, and pauses to gloat upon him. Next he chops up the gold with a small hatchet, places it upen a swinging _ table before the unfortunate victim, heats it in a lamp and then gloats again. Then he seizes a pair of tongs with which the gold is placed in the cavity, and prepares to beat it down solid. This is effected in different ways by differeut dentists. Some of the milder operators use a pill-driver, but the more savage typo of dentist holds the gold in place with a crow-bar, while a feminine assistant pounds the end of the crow-bar with a sledge-hammer. Being broken on. the wheel is amusement for the victim compared with this process, and the rack a pleasant sensation. It is a sad fact that dental mania is on the increase, as 1-, indicated by the frequent signs of " Teeth Filled While You Wait " in our business blocks. The legislature should regulate the traffic in the interests of the dentists themselves, since the practice of the profession is conducive to mendacity. The experienced victim always know, for instance, when the dentist says, "Now, this will not hurt," that a tide is coming in his affairs that will make him wish his parents had died before they had met each other. The most learned ccclesiasts are now inclining to the belief that the outer darkness, referred to in the Scriptures, is only a figurative allusion to the dentist's chair, which is borne out by the declaration that there shall be weeping and filling of teeth.— "New York Commercial Advertiser."