An estimated 3% of the population suffers from dentophobia, a crippling fear of going to the dentist. Given some of the instruments pictured below, it’s not hard to see why.
However, if you want a sparking smile, regular visits to the dentist are a necessary evil. Since the always accurate internet declares that today is National Dentist Day, Second Glance History has some tips to help you conquer your fear and keep your pearly whites filling (get it??) good.
Do what you love.
Part of the fear of going to the dentist is being judged for your bad habits like not flossing or eating copious amounts of sugar—or is that just me? However, this guy will enable all your vices:
A German Dentist winds up a programme of his extraordinary merit by the following recommendation:
“P.S. Gentlemen, Professors, Students and others, need not to be under any needless alarm that it is at all necessary for them, during their dental operation, to put aside their beloved pipes. On the contrary, they may continue smoking with the most blissful impunity, and they will only find that, between two wiffs of tobacco their tooth has quietly gone.”
Who needs to go to the dentist when you can do it yourself?
One of the most extraordinary petitions that a Sovereign has ever received is now on its way across the world to King Edward from Dr. Tunnock, a dental surgeon, of Footsoray, near Melbourne.
Dr. Tunnock, it appears, has invented an anaesthetic which not only allows of teeth being extracted painlessly, but is so simple in its operation that the public are enabled to become their own dentists.
In the petition Dr. Tunnock seeks royal support for his discovery, which he claims so softens the bony walls round the teeth that they may be extracted with the maximum of ease and the minimum of pain.
If the cow leaves a five-star moo-view, the dentist deserves your business.
A dentist at Bondi—a suburb of Sydney. . . was entrusted recently with the task of making the cow—a prize animal—a false set of teeth, according to the paper which reveals this somewhat freakish bit of surgery. The set was made and fitted into the animal’s jaw without any ill effects, it is stated.
Cows are no more immune from toothache or the torture of teeth extraction, than humans, according to one of the professors of the Veterinary Research School at Sydney University.
Pro tip: if you’ve just robbed your dentist, you might want to hold off on that dental work for a while.
Dr. Rousseau, dentist, Rue des Martyrs, Paris, was walking with his wife one day, recently, when a youth snatched a bag Mde. Rousseau was carrying, and made off with it. The dentist’s only satisfaction was to say “That young man was too quick for me, but I should recognise him again,”
To his surprise, the thief called on him to have a tooth stopped the next day. When he was fairly installed in the operating-chair and the usual inspection of the tooth had been made, the dentist said, “I find it necessary to take an impression of your mouth, but it will not take long, and there will be no pain.” Dr. Rousseau prepared some plaster, and applied it to the roof of the thief’s mouth.
Instead of removing it immediately he let it dry, and when it was solidly formed he added, “Now my friend there is just a little formality, but you must remain quite calm. You stole my wife’s handbag in the street a few days ago. Suppose we go round to the police-station together.”
The patient startled nearly out of his wits, jumped up and made various inarticulate noises, accompanied by violent gesticulations, but finding his mouth so full and wide open, he consented to accompany the dentist to the police-station.
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Disclaimer: The modern era is far from the first to grapple with rampant “fake news.” As I am neither a historian nor journalist, I make no claims about the accuracy or lack thereof of the above sources. I assert only that they make for a good story.
Welcome to Second Glance History! This blog seeks to uncover the people and the stories forgotten by history and give them another read through a modern lens. Join me every week as we examine the differences that divide and the common threads that connect the then to the now.
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