WEBVTT - The Twisted History of Dentistry 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.160 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm joh 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:19.680 caught and then fun of me this. I'm sorry I 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.400 had something in my mouth. It is stuff you should know, 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:24.760 and I have no room to make fun of you. Friend. 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.240 I've been on my own dental journey for some time 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.319 now and I'm still in the midst of it. What 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:32.519 are you got going on? All sorts of stuff I 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:37.760 was not granted with, like great strong, um, indestructible, like 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.920 teeth and all that, you know, like the feeling I 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:44.240 thought like I just hadn't taken enough care of him whatever. 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:46.839 But now that I actually do take really good care 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.239 of my teeth, I found like, no, it's they're just 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.000 not as great as they could be. I think, Yeah, 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.000 I'm I'm fully aware with that emotion, as you know. 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:56.560 And you know, I don't even know if I said 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:58.279 a may set on the air, but my front went, 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.680 I'm gonna have to have it redone. Yeah, yeah, when 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:03.600 is that going to happen? It's sort of I mean, 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.880 right now, he's basically like, it's not causing any trouble 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:09.840 right now, but it's gonna happen at some point, so 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:12.399 he almost made it sound like, whenever you feel like 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.560 you're up for being toothless again for three months, let 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:20.559 me know just time, just in time for our next 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:25.280 live show whenever that is. Oh jeez, I forgot about that. Um, 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:27.720 I don't know, we'll see. Yeah, well, it's not like 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:30.280 you haven't been on stage without a tooth before. You're 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:32.640 taking them out like that was your stick at at 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:34.880 the beginning of a number of shows. So don't get 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.319 shy these days, Chuck. No, you gotta you gotta work 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:43.440 your deficiencies. That's true. So we're talking about the history 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.200 of dynastry, which, by the way, people listening, I know 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.600 you know this probably, but it wasn't until like late 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.240 in the eighteenth century that that word was even used. Really, 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.240 they didn't even call it dynastry until then. They called 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.880 it fizzle stick. And we should thank quite a few 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.560 people here. I'm sure you have some uh websites that 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.240 you looked at, but I went to the British Dental 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:09.880 Association art took dot org History Daily, Uh, this great 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:12.360 website called all Things Georgian. I think it's a blog 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:15.760 where you can find some cool old pictures of antiquated 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:20.280 dentistry tools. Uh, and then a book by James Wybrandt 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:26.440 called The Excruciating History of Dentistry insert colon sound. Has 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:28.200 that been happening, by the way, I don't think so. 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:31.040 I think Jerry thought we were joking about that. Literally, 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.680 I've just been saying that. I'm pretty sure, well I 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:35.760 haven't picked it up on any of the QA I've 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.639 been doing. I haven't either, So we'll find out. I'll 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:42.520 pay extra attention UM to some tales and oral oddities 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:47.960 from Babylon two braces. Very nice. Yeah, huge, huge shout 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:50.680 out also to our boy Dave Ruse for helping us 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:53.920 with this one as well. Yeah, this was my idea, 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:56.519 and as when we instructed Dave, I said, Hey, Dave, 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.040 how about history of dentistry? And it's like, I don't 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.720 want to talk about any thing modern that works. I 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:03.840 want to talk about all the old stuff, right, and 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:05.880 all the stuff that they tried along the way that 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.840 people screamed and excruciating pain. And actually that's I think 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.880 that's that's good for UM for pointing out, Chuck that 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.240 there are points where what stuff we're talking about like 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.359 might actually make you feel faint, like it happened to me. Yeah, 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.520 there's a trigger warning for sure. There was this one 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:28.120 site called Science Museum Group Collection Cumbersome, but they have 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:32.000 a lot of um dental old dental stuff in their collection, 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.960 and they have very high rise pictures and a lot 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.920 of them have descriptions of how the thing was used, 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.760 and like, I like, i'd like break out in a 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.320 little trickle sweat along the top of my lip and 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.120 like get a little woozy just reading about this stuff. 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.280 And I'm pretty tough with that kind of thing. I mean, 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.360 I can talk about poop all the live long day, 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:54.760 but when it comes to like pulling teeth out without 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.640 anesthetics and things like that, it's my knees get a 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:00.400 little wobbly. Yeah. And I don't know if you had 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:02.800 the same reaction, but looking at these ol dental tools, 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:08.200 it's it's like, well that was clearly also this you know, 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.320 like some sort of ironsmithing tool or whatever. And they 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:14.240 just said, well, hey, I bet you if you move 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.240 that little spont dibbot over here, you could also use 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.719 it to crank out a molar. And as we'll see, 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:22.960 if you wanted a tooth remove for a very long time, 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.200 depending on where you lived, you probably went to go 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:29.640 see your local smithie. Yeah, crazy stuff just settle in everybody. 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.800 Let's start at the very very beginning, because for at 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:38.920 least seven thousand years people have been talking and writing 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.840 about toothaches. The Babylonians, I believe, we're among the first 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.159 to ever create an alphabet, to ever write anything down. 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.440 And one of the things they wrote about was toothaches 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.760 and the idea of where toothaches came from, which are 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:57.640 called toothworms chuck, which are cute sounding. Actually you know, yeah, 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.960 the toothworm is what you I think it is, even 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.920 though it's not real, but little tiny worms that get 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:08.080 in your mouth, and sometimes that they would originate in 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.800 your mouth like spontaneously. Sometimes they got into your mouth 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.039 somehow and worm their way literally into your tooth like 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:19.760 the the non existent core of an apple. And uh, 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:21.440 this is you know. They said, all right, here's what 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.960 you should do. You should you should uh do some 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:27.200 sort of ceremony to the gods and ask for a 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.360 little help from the gods. And then later on they said, oh, 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:34.040 maybe we can actually try something. And that early something 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:40.680 and this is two to five zero BC years ago 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:44.200 for most people would say, Uh, they would heat up 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:48.400 a piece of um. They would heat up bees wax 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:51.640 filled with hinbane seeds and put it in your mouth, 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:53.880 and so it basically fills your mouth up with the 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:56.640 smoke of the hinbane seed, which is a nightshade and 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.120 it can be really dangerous if there's a lot of it. 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:01.240 But this guy, I just showed you where they were at. 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:05.160 It seems like all the earliest and for a long 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:09.000 time mitigation efforts were trying anything to just numb the 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.000 pain a little bit for a while, because hem pain 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.120 will do that in small doses, I'm sure. And it 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:15.640 was basically like, let me stop the pain for a 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:17.920 little while, but the pain would always come back, so 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.839 eventually they had to move to extraction. Yes, and that 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:26.960 those toothworm The toothworm theory of teeth pain had some 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:30.719 really like um staying effect, like it was around in 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:35.800 the medieval medieval times in Europe. Uh, if you actually 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.560 go to medieval times today in your local suburb, you'll 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:42.919 hear them talk about toothworms. And there was this No, 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:45.719 I don't think so unless somebody really did their homework. 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.680 But it wouldn't surprise me. No, Um, there was a 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.120 study I ran across that talked about and this was 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:56.440 a paper from talked about a Chinese traditional medicine practitioner 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.240 who cited toothworms as the cause of somebody's tooth that 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:04.000 they were healing and they used that same beeswax, henbane, 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.960 he um like medicine to treat it. Here's what I 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:13.880 want to know. Did they actually see any worms ever? Like, 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:16.400 was this somebody whose mouth was so infected they got 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.720 worms or something? Oh boy, wouldn't that be something. I mean, 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:21.800 I don't know if they were completely invisible. It just 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:25.200 seems a little weird. Maybe they saw pus and and 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.840 it came out as in kind of a worm like form, 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.480 like is it from the gums and somebody thought it 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:32.600 was worms or who knows, maybe somebody did have worms. 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.160 It seems weird to just be like it's worms without 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:39.720 anyone ever having seen worms of any kind. I told 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:43.080 you guys, I didn't know that you're talking about mouth 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:48.560 bus Uh. Let's skip forward to ancient Egypt where we 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.720 have who maybe the first dentist, and this is around 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:56.640 b C or to six zero zero during the time 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.800 of king Is that dozer? That's what That's how I'd 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:08.840 say j is silent, right, uh de hooser a dohoeser. Uh. 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:13.440 There was a scribe called Hessy Ree who and they 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.560 read the hieroglyphics on the scribes burial chamber that basically said, 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.320 this guy is the best in town dentistry. He was 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.240 the greatest of those who deal with teeth, uh, and 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:26.880 of the physicians. And that was I think one of 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.160 the first sort of mentions of someone you know, written 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.640 down on uh, well not paper, but hieroglyphics written down 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:35.760 that someone actually did this for a living. Yeah. The 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:40.160 paper actually did come not too much longer after that. Um. 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.679 The Papyrus Ebers, which we've talked about many times, it's 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:47.439 a scroll, and it had a lot of stuff medical 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.520 ailments and treatments for those ailments, and there were treatments 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.839 for toothaches and um other kinds of like oral problems 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:59.120 like bleeding gums and stuff like that. And of course, 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:01.880 because what they had a hand at the time where 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.720 like medicinal cures, they prescribed all sorts of medicinal cures. 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.880 And it's like you said, there was basically just this 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:13.000 aim to cure the pain um, and they would do 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:17.240 all sorts of things like use opium, or they would 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.520 use that henbane or other kinds of night shade. But 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:25.240 then also, um, problematically, they would use arsenic, which um 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.160 is it really does kill disease tissue, sure, but it 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.800 also can kill you two in some pretty horrific ways. Um. 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:36.160 What's crazy about that is not that the ancient Egyptians 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.160 were using that, you know, like thirty years ago, but 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:44.440 that that was still in use into the modern age, 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:46.839 Like people were using arsenic for a very long time 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.719 to treat mouth stuff. Um. And in fact, we've done 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:52.520 a lot of weird stuff to our mouth and use 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:54.200 a lot of things we shouldn't have been using in 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.400 our mouths over the years. I was trying to think 0:09:57.400 --> 0:09:59.320 of a bleeding gums Murphy joke there a minute ago. 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.520 But all you have to do is say his name 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:06.280 and then I guess, uh you you mentioned ancient Chinese 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:10.199 medicine or a traditional Chinese medicine, and they were kind 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.439 of on board early on. It's funny because sometimes people 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:16.880 seem to be going toward the right thing because they 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.760 were using things like rinses and mouth washes. Makes sense 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:25.320 they would also use enemas. I'm not sure about that. 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.640 Enemas have been listed to cure a whole host of things, 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:30.240 but I think I don't know about toothaches. It was 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.520 more for the distraction, is my guess, right, than someone 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:37.959 punches you in the mouth. But acupuncture. Of the three 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:43.120 acupuncture sites for TCM, twenty six of them are tied 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:49.199 to toothache relief. UM. And then piling on from the 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.640 different cultures that added and contributed to like our general 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:58.080 human knowledge of how to treat problems with the mouth. Um. 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.960 The Hindus from say like India and Southeast Asia and 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.840 South Asia. UM. They put their stuff down in the Vedas, 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.080 which were a bunch of ancient texts much like the 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:13.360 Papyrus Ebers, which dealt with things like medical conditions, including um, 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:17.160 how did not just treat tooth problems in teeth pain 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.160 but also how to like prevent it. And they actually 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:24.200 prescribed using like a twig with the end with the 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:27.959 end fraid to um to basically chew on and also 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:30.000 just kind of brush with it was like the first 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:34.440 earliest toothbrush. And they also had dentrifices, which is a 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:38.120 type something you would use to clean or polish or 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:43.880 scrape off your teeth. Um made of honey oil and herbs, 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:49.760 which is pretty great. Like that was pretty groundbreaking, frankly. Yeah, 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:53.560 and that's people still use, uh, I mean in survival 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.400 handbooks and stuff. They say, if you're you know, lost 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:00.000 in the woods for for many many days, you're gonna 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.040 want to take care of your teeth. It sounds silly, 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:06.840 but if you're wandering around for three weeks, uh, you 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:10.440 want to just feel fresh. But but the whole twig 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.320 fraid twig thing is what they still people still do 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:15.520 that in different cultures around the world, chewing on twigs. 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.800 You can even buy some of that stuff still uh 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.000 here in the West, and uh like dental twigs to 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.280 chew on and stuff. Yeah, And if you ever have 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:28.840 closely watched Shakespeare in Love, Gwyneth Paltrow uses one in 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:33.000 that movie that she really she does. I saw it. 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:35.080 I don't know if I closely watched it, though, Well, 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:36.960 you need to go back and closely watch it. That 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:41.040 thing is full of so many um like, so much imagery, 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:45.920 so much illuminatut stuff. It's crazy. Really, did you watch 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.080 it recently? No? For some reason, her chewing on that 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:51.480 twig made an enormous impression on me because I haven't 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.760 seen that movie since the nineties, but I've never forgotten that, 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:57.800 And it's not like one of those things where you know, 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.160 like I only think of it when I'm confronted with 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.000 Shakespeare and love, like it just pops into my head 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:07.280 every once in a while, weirdly, so I was primed 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:09.920 for this episode, Chuck. So when you think when I 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:11.960 say the words Gwyneth Paltrow, I know you think of 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:16.319 two things in this order. Her duet with Huey Lewis 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:21.280 that's third cruising? Did you just do that to me? 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.319 Chewing on twigs? What's what's the third one? Just goop 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:29.920 in general? Okay, that's probably just goop. Second, so chewing 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.240 on the twig goop. And then yes, that duet that 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:35.920 I can sometimes push out of my head until you 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:40.600 bring it up. Um. So, now we move on to 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:44.360 ancient Rome, which is where you know, things sort of 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.240 took a leap forward in a way, like a lot 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:49.559 of stuff did in ancient Rome, not to the kind 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.480 of modern dental work that we're you know, used to 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.920 today obviously, but for the time not too bad, and 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.880 that they did things like crowns, they did bridge work, Uh, 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.720 had dental prosthetics made from things like ivory or bone, 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.160 which makes sense. Uh, so they kind of advanced things 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:09.840 a little bit. There was a huge bit, if you 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:14.280 ask me, yeahs enormous leap forward. Yeah, but I mean 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.360 I don't I'm sure they look pretty jankie. You know. Well, 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:20.520 you could still chew a turkey leg, and by god, 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.480 you'd be grateful you could. Probably it didn't matter what 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.280 you looked like in ancient room. Everybody too wasted on wine. 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:28.800 Oh I missed my time and place, didn't I you 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:32.960 really did. Uh. There was a position, their name all 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:38.400 less Cornelius Celsus, who filled supposedly filled the first cavities, 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.600 but they weren't traditionally like we think of cavities. They 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.960 were from poard lead, and they were meant to serve 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.840 as something to grab onto to actually pull a tooth. 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:51.880 So I guess he would do it to like some 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.800 sort of a post or a stem or something. I 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:58.080 think he would poor. Yeah, it's weird because you would 0:14:58.120 --> 0:14:59.920 have to use molten lead, and you can't just go 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.000 around pouring that on people's teeth and expecting their face 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:07.040 to not fall off or develop a nice post. So 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:09.960 so yeah, I'm not. I'm not. I get the impression 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.080 that he molded it around whatever tooth was left so 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:16.360 that he had more gripping power on That was my 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:21.440 take on it. But but it did end up becoming like, um, 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.960 I guess at the very least, it's noteworthy that he 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.680 he kind of came up with the dental fillings, even 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:31.840 if that wasn't the point of it. Uh. And then 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:33.640 before I guess we break, we should mention this one 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:38.080 more kind of fun fact. An ancient room for a 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.760 for a mouth wash, they recommended rinsing the mouth with 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:46.040 the first yurin of the morning, which everyone knows is 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:52.240 the densest yellowest urine protein rich. So we are going 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:54.240 to break now because I have that taste in my 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:59.720 mouth thanks to you, urine. Yeah, I'm very very um suggestible. 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:04.160 Have you ever drank your in? No, No, I can 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:09.240 say that I never have. I think most people can 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:11.560 say one way or the other. Right, Yeah, well, yeah, 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.600 that's a yes or no question. Yeah, yeah, I'm sort 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.560 of a little bit. I haven't either. I was just 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:19.840 I was just wondering, you never know. Yeah, well, it's 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.680 good that after thirteen years we're still exploring one another. 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.680 All right, well, let's take a break and we'll be 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:48.800 back right after this. So Chuck, we're back, and we're 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:51.040 into the Middle Ages. Now. I don't know if anyone's 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:56.320 caught onto this, but we're loosely organizing this. Um yeah, 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.440 over the over the years, okay, and we've reached the 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.320 Middle Age Middle Ages of Europe, I should say specifically, 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:08.359 um and after Rome fell in so many ways. And 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:10.320 of course we've talked about it before, but the Middle 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:12.199 Ages are often called the Dark Ages. You're not even 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:14.200 supposed to call them the Middle Ages because it makes 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.520 the stuff that happened during this time inconsequential and it's 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.320 just not the case. But it is true that, like 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:25.200 the practice of dentistry really took a nose dive during 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:27.760 this time. So this is actually a pretty good example 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:32.479 of how human knowledge in um, well, the human knowledge 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.200 of how to do things smartly really fell off for 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:39.520 a little while had to be rediscovered, that's right. And 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:43.080 it was around this time that physicians like they were 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:46.320 something special back then. But the physician said, I'm not 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.520 messing around with teeth, like the mouth is beneath me. 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.920 Which is funny that that's still sort of a thing, right, Yeah, 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.000 it's true as far as like, uh, what movie was 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.920 that the The Hangover when Ed Helms was a dentist 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.160 and none of the doctors like them any respect, wasn't it? Um? 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.040 Wasn't it on Seinfeld that George pretended to be a 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.200 dentist for a little while? Was it? He pretended to 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.320 be an architect? Right? But there was something about a 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:14.760 dentist there. It was going to be like a dentist 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.359 at first. Maybe I don't know. Well there was the 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:21.680 dentist too, which was what's his face? Kranston, Tim Whatley, 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:26.600 Tim Whatley, I don't know. It's I don't know. Okay, 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:28.760 well there's something to pretend to be a dentist. Maybe 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.919 the kid double cross the kid that George was sponsoring 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:37.600 for the the Susan's Foundation was said he wanted to 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:39.359 be an architect, and then when he takes him in 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:41.800 there for the scholarship, he changes, he double crosses him 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.600 and says he wants to be a dentist, and everybody 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.640 laughed about how stupid architects are, even though Georgia an architect. 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:51.840 I think we may have hammered it out here live 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:56.520 on the episode. So if physicians did not pull teeth. 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:01.160 That was left to a couple of other people professions. 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:05.520 One was called a tooth drawer, uh, not a tooth drawer. 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.320 And the first reference I found that this was Peter 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:12.400 of London in thirteen twenty. Okay, you're a better researcher 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.879 than I am. That's not true, but it is Chuck, 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:18.119 at least in this case, it is very true because 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.080 I tried. I looked high and low and did not 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:22.840 turn that up to find them. Two drawers drawers from 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.240 the Middle Ages. Well, I think they started in the 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:28.879 thirteen hundreds, but I do think you're right in that 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:31.840 they had their sort of apex probably in like the 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:36.439 seventeen and eighteen hundreds, because and we'll explain what they are. 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:41.080 They are exactly the character that uh what's his face 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:45.919 played in Christoph Waltz in Django unchained. Yes, when he 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:50.159 played the dentist, he now he would have been he 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:52.560 was kind of like a tooth drawer. No, he definitely was. 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.920 He was. He was an itinerant dentist for sure. Um 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.359 And yes, he he was like a more tooth drawer 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:02.200 than what you would consider a dentist in today's standards. 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.960 But I also have the impression that tooth drawers were 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:10.919 way more like showman like, um, much less scrupulous and 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.320 and like refined, and they were just kind of like 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:17.560 well like Charlotte Charlottean's and actually the word Charlatan is 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:21.720 the Italian for tooth drawer. Yeah, I thought that that's 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:23.879 who that character was, though we just didn't get to 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.719 see him practice that much. I see, I see, okay, 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:30.000 because he wasn't doing dentistry in the movie, but he 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.399 rolled through with that you know, big old tooth on 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:37.359 the spring of his buggy, which is pretty fun. But 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:39.640 I'm sure at the very least Tarantino, you know, sort 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.960 of based it on this practice, which was they would 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:47.400 come into town. They were sort of part entertainer, part um, 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.600 not even part dentist, because what they really were were 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:56.600 just people with enough uh verve to take pliers and 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.760 yanka tooth out of somebody's mouth. Yeah, and they on 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:02.320 a stage, yes, on a stage, and they would be 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.679 surrounded by a band maybe depending on um, you know 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:09.879 what errow we're talking about, they would uh might they 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:14.960 might have jugglers and acrobats like they basically like surrounded 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:17.960 themselves with a circus and the main attraction, the main 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:21.919 event was the pulling of teeth, and it would just 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:23.960 be like one after the other, come on up here. 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:26.920 And that was a lot of times your only option, 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:29.840 depending on where you lived, was to wait around for 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.280 the tooth drawer to come along and hopefully pull your teeth, 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:36.239 or again, like we talked about before, you might have 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:40.480 somebody in town who was a blacksmith or a goldsmith 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:43.440 um who would be willing to pull teeth and maybe 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:46.720 even made like some sort of primitive dental appliances to 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:49.440 to replace the pulled tooth what with, So you would 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.159 go see him, they pull the tooth and then they 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:54.040 put like a I don't know, an iron tooth in 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:56.560 in its place or something like that. But that was 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.600 your options for a very long time. Yeah, and I 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:01.800 think the tooth drawer that you know, the purpose of 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.840 the band was to distract people from the pain, the 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:08.480 howling pain. So the band would they would literally tap 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.200 on the stage louder for the band to play louder 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:13.760 when it got more intense, and they would, you know, 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:16.080 they would dope them up with like liquor or something, 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:19.199 and part of it was to like pull teeth but 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:20.920 not like, hey, I want to pull fifty teeth in 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:22.280 this sound to make money. I think it was like 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.159 fifty cents of tooth. It was mainly, I think, to 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:28.200 sell the tonics and the salves and all that snake 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:30.280 oil stuff that came along with it as well. Yeah 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:33.639 that's where they get you. That's totally where they get you. 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:36.199 Still where they get you. Yeah, so so okay, So 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:40.320 tooth drawers were medieval, but that's really impressive that they 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:44.280 lasted until the eighteenth century. They were They were around 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:47.359 for a really long time. One of the problems was 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:51.520 that not only were they Charlatan's like one of their techniques. 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:54.359 When they came into town, the first person they would 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:56.600 call on was like a plant who was working with 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:58.760 them and would come up with like a tooth in 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:01.359 their mouth already, and the dentists would pretend to just 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:03.639 painlessly pull it, and they'd spit this tooth out and 0:23:03.800 --> 0:23:05.760 there you go. And then all of a sudden, everybody 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:08.000 who actually did have tooth paint would be willing to 0:23:08.040 --> 0:23:10.960 come up on stage. They were hucksters. There were from 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:13.879 what I saw, actual like legit ones who cared about 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:17.359 people and wanted to ease suffering that Christoph Waltz is 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:21.119 of the tooth drars, but there were plenty. For the 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:24.760 most part, they were generally viewed as carneys, like you 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:27.879 didn't you didn't you know, you didn't like talk openly 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:29.720 about how much money you had in your wallet around 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:33.119 him kind of thing. Right, Um, And you know, at 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:34.919 the beginning of this section we mentioned that there were 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:37.200 a couple of types of people would do it because 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:40.800 physicians wouldn't. The tooth roar was one, and then the 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:44.919 barber surgeon was the other. If you've ever seen the 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:47.480 great Saturday Night Live skit from years ago with Steve 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:50.919 Martin as Theodoric of York, one of the great all 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:53.760 time skits, I don't think i've seen that one. He 0:23:53.840 --> 0:23:56.000 was a barber and as you know, of course, everything 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:57.479 that comes in there, and he's like, you just need 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.640 a good bleeding, Like Bill Murray came men with both 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:03.359 of his legs broken off and just blood everywhere, and 0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:07.520 he's like, you need a bleeding. He's like, I'm already bleeding. Uh. 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:11.760 It's good stuff. But um. Barbering was first introduced in 0:24:11.880 --> 0:24:15.480 Rome and about two nineties six, and they think that 0:24:15.520 --> 0:24:18.680 they got into dentistry some because they already had the tools, 0:24:19.200 --> 0:24:23.119 like sharp things basically. Uh. And eventually they would split. 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:27.520 Barber surgeons would split up in seventy. But before that 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:31.080 they were literally barbers and surgeons. They would cut hair 0:24:31.119 --> 0:24:35.160 and stuff and also cut you open if they needed to. Yeah. 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:37.760 But when they split off, it's not like the barber 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:42.600 surgeons stopped cutting you open. They would still do limb amputations. 0:24:43.280 --> 0:24:46.439 They would do bleedings like blood lighting with leeches. They 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:49.920 would do um, tooth pulling, um. And they would also 0:24:49.920 --> 0:24:52.239 shave you and give you a haircut. It was like 0:24:52.280 --> 0:24:55.359 the other stuff that the medical surgeons who went to 0:24:55.480 --> 0:25:00.080 the universities, the earlier universities for training, um, that's what 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:02.320 they kind of kept as their own. They became the 0:25:02.320 --> 0:25:05.479 physicians where the barber surgeons were, you know, doing like 0:25:06.280 --> 0:25:10.360 stuff anybody could do, you know, like amputating a limb. Right, 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:14.320 And the theodoric of York Bit is appropriate here because 0:25:14.920 --> 0:25:16.800 that's sort of what you know, the whole blood letting 0:25:16.840 --> 0:25:20.000 and bleeding thing was they were. They would bleed people 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:23.359 for all kinds of things, including tooth pain. Um. They 0:25:23.359 --> 0:25:25.679 would say, you know, I think all the way up 0:25:25.760 --> 0:25:29.480 until like the first half of the eight hundreds. If 0:25:29.480 --> 0:25:32.240 you had a cavity or something, they would bleed you first, 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:35.760 like first thing. It was just a matter of course. Yeah, 0:25:35.760 --> 0:25:39.040 And Dave turned up UM. As late as nineteen seventeen, 0:25:39.080 --> 0:25:42.480 a guy named Charles Edmund Kells, who was respected for 0:25:42.880 --> 0:25:46.879 dentistry UM wrote a treatise on how to um put 0:25:47.160 --> 0:25:50.480 how to direct leeches to a specific spot on the gums, 0:25:50.560 --> 0:25:54.200 to that part of the gums. And I looked into 0:25:54.240 --> 0:25:57.360 my great astonishment, Chuck, we have not done an episode 0:25:57.359 --> 0:25:59.439 on leeches, and by god, we are going to do 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:03.600 an episode. Really. I know. We didn't want to medical leeches, right, 0:26:03.760 --> 0:26:07.159 we did a bizarre medical treatments episode and that was 0:26:07.160 --> 0:26:08.760 in there, and it was in there, but I mean 0:26:09.640 --> 0:26:14.280 it's perfect. It's like weird medical stuff animal episode. It's 0:26:14.280 --> 0:26:19.119 got it all. It's yeah to the movie leeches. Gotta 0:26:19.200 --> 0:26:22.200 talk about stand by me? Oh yeah, yeah, that movie, 0:26:22.240 --> 0:26:24.600 but also leeches too. Was there a movie called Leeches? 0:26:24.680 --> 0:26:26.439 I'm sure there was. And I think I had an 0:26:26.480 --> 0:26:29.720 exclamation exclamation point. Well, I'll tell you what. If there's 0:26:29.760 --> 0:26:33.199 not that movie, we'll do that movie too, Okay, like 0:26:33.240 --> 0:26:36.760 we'll make it ourselves. Yeah, starring us, written directed by us. 0:26:36.800 --> 0:26:39.800 The whole deal. This sounds awesome. We could we could 0:26:39.800 --> 0:26:41.840 just go back and use our This Day in History 0:26:41.840 --> 0:26:44.320 series and just dub in new dialogue and call it 0:26:44.359 --> 0:26:48.440 as right. Um. So the tools that they would use, 0:26:49.000 --> 0:26:50.760 this is where I went to that Georgian All Things 0:26:50.760 --> 0:26:53.720 Georgian website. There were all kinds of things. It was 0:26:53.760 --> 0:26:57.080 something called a dental pelican. All these were sort of 0:26:57.160 --> 0:27:00.480 versions of forceps. At the end of the day. Uh, 0:27:00.520 --> 0:27:03.800 the pelican looks I was sort of like ice tongs, 0:27:03.800 --> 0:27:05.920 like for big blocks of ice. I couldn't make heads 0:27:06.000 --> 0:27:08.399 or tails of how it used. I don't know. I 0:27:08.440 --> 0:27:12.760 mean there's something called a dental key, which um could 0:27:12.840 --> 0:27:15.080 be used to either lever out your tooth or just 0:27:15.119 --> 0:27:17.280 break it into pieces. That was the one that made 0:27:17.280 --> 0:27:21.080 me feel first faint. So George the Third's operator for 0:27:21.119 --> 0:27:25.520 the teeth, Thomas Bird Moore, uh wrote some stuff in 0:27:26.040 --> 0:27:29.200 his Tristas on the disorders and Deformities of the teeth 0:27:29.200 --> 0:27:31.840 and gums in seventeen seventy and he talked about this 0:27:31.920 --> 0:27:34.159 lady that came in that had, you know, had a 0:27:34.200 --> 0:27:35.800 bad tooth that needed to be pulled. One of our 0:27:35.880 --> 0:27:39.800 upper molars and he said that after some work, he 0:27:39.920 --> 0:27:43.200 brought away the affected tooth together with a piece of 0:27:43.280 --> 0:27:46.800 jawbone as big as a walnut and three neighboring molars. Lord. Yeah, 0:27:46.880 --> 0:27:48.960 so that was I'm glad you said that. I ran 0:27:49.000 --> 0:27:51.280 into that all over the place. One of the problems 0:27:51.359 --> 0:27:57.520 with pre trained dentistry, um, where there was like actual 0:27:57.680 --> 0:28:02.479 like science based treatments and stuff like that when you 0:28:02.520 --> 0:28:05.320 had your tooth pulled, like there was a really good 0:28:05.400 --> 0:28:09.280 chance that a chunk of the bone and like your 0:28:09.320 --> 0:28:11.800 your jaw was going to come out along with it 0:28:11.800 --> 0:28:14.760 because they didn't know what they were doing, and um, 0:28:14.800 --> 0:28:16.679 like do you could die from it? Like a lot 0:28:16.720 --> 0:28:20.000 of people actually died from an infection that was brought 0:28:20.000 --> 0:28:24.520 on by a badly pulled tooth, a botched tooth tooth drawing. Yeah, 0:28:24.560 --> 0:28:26.520 this is um. I mean, it's sad, but it's kind 0:28:26.520 --> 0:28:28.960 of funny too because it was so long ago. But 0:28:29.160 --> 0:28:33.280 the Bill of mortality in London in sixteen, Uh what 0:28:33.440 --> 0:28:36.000 the number five cause of death on the bill of mortality? 0:28:36.040 --> 0:28:40.720 It was just teeth, That's all you need to say. 0:28:40.880 --> 0:28:44.760 That's it. They were apparently a hundred and eleven people 0:28:44.760 --> 0:28:48.920 in London died from infections in one week, um, brought 0:28:48.960 --> 0:28:53.000 on by botch dental dental pullings. Again, we don't mean 0:28:53.000 --> 0:28:56.920 to be laughing, but uh, comedy is tragedy perfect plus time. Right. Yeah, 0:28:57.080 --> 0:28:59.200 I know exactly what you mean. I've got one that's 0:28:59.240 --> 0:29:03.080 coming up that I just can't help. Okay, So we 0:29:03.200 --> 0:29:08.760 finally have reached that eighteenth century where that's interestingly, that's 0:29:08.840 --> 0:29:11.680 the heyday of the tooth drawers that we described, like 0:29:11.720 --> 0:29:14.440 where they roll into town with like a circus around 0:29:14.520 --> 0:29:18.160 him and everything. The early eighteenth century was when they 0:29:18.160 --> 0:29:21.760 were really doing that up. Um. But at the same time, 0:29:21.880 --> 0:29:25.200 this is also the origin of dentistry as we understand 0:29:25.200 --> 0:29:28.040 it today, like modern dentistry. And there are two guys 0:29:28.120 --> 0:29:32.560 that are typically pointed to as the um the fathers 0:29:32.600 --> 0:29:38.040 of dentistry. One is a Frenchman named Pierre Fauchard, Yeah, 0:29:38.120 --> 0:29:41.760 and the other is that an American named green Vardamin Black, 0:29:42.480 --> 0:29:47.480 which is a pretty cool name. G BB. Yeah, two 0:29:47.560 --> 0:29:50.440 colors in your name, that is impressive. You don't see 0:29:50.480 --> 0:29:54.680 that very often. Like his name is Green Black, Yeah, 0:29:54.760 --> 0:29:56.880 I never thought about that. Well, you just heard his 0:29:57.000 --> 0:29:59.280 name recently. You know what you get when you mixed 0:29:59.280 --> 0:30:03.200 green and black, like black I think black, right, Yeah, 0:30:03.520 --> 0:30:07.360 so you could just call him black. So Pierre Fourchard 0:30:07.560 --> 0:30:10.160 he uh. He pioneered a lot of things. But one 0:30:10.200 --> 0:30:12.000 of the funny things that you never really think about 0:30:12.360 --> 0:30:14.760 as far as an advancement was literally just putting people 0:30:14.800 --> 0:30:19.480 in an armchair to work on them. Apparently before then 0:30:19.520 --> 0:30:22.200 they would lay people on the floor and I guess 0:30:22.240 --> 0:30:25.880 get on their knees. The dentist would and put their 0:30:25.920 --> 0:30:28.880 head between their knees and like hold it between their 0:30:28.960 --> 0:30:31.320 knees and thighs to keep it steady because it was 0:30:31.320 --> 0:30:35.320 such an awful thing. Yes, I mean that that was dentistry. Yeah, 0:30:35.800 --> 0:30:38.000 so it really was like cutting edge to be like, 0:30:38.080 --> 0:30:40.280 how about you just make yourself comfortable in this chair 0:30:40.320 --> 0:30:43.800 and I'll stand under you instead and me comfortable, right. Um. 0:30:43.960 --> 0:30:46.800 And that wasn't the extent of Fouchard's contributions. He was 0:30:46.840 --> 0:30:51.280 the first to to create like evidence based treatments. Um, 0:30:51.360 --> 0:30:54.360 he didn't. He just kind of pooh pooed the idea 0:30:54.360 --> 0:30:57.920 of just following tradition. He felt tradition was probably not 0:30:58.040 --> 0:31:00.880 so great and he wanted to do a apply science 0:31:00.920 --> 0:31:04.000 and and um ration rationalism, I guess to the to 0:31:04.080 --> 0:31:08.800 the whole pursuit of treating people's teeth problems. Um. He 0:31:08.960 --> 0:31:14.520 also got really good at um creating um like prosthetics 0:31:14.560 --> 0:31:19.320 like dentures and things like that that he would string together. Um. 0:31:19.400 --> 0:31:23.600 He also was um known for introducing a lot of 0:31:23.600 --> 0:31:25.800 the dental tools. I don't know if he invented all 0:31:25.840 --> 0:31:28.480 of them, but he he organized and categorized him and 0:31:28.520 --> 0:31:31.320 basically his treatise, I think it was a two volume 0:31:31.360 --> 0:31:35.280 work that spanned eight hundred pages, basically set down like 0:31:35.520 --> 0:31:39.840 here's how you be like a legitimate dentist, seventeen fifties style. 0:31:40.200 --> 0:31:44.400 And a lot of his his observations were so um 0:31:44.440 --> 0:31:47.480 they were just accurate that they still hold hold true today. 0:31:47.560 --> 0:31:50.760 Although I've seen his his work as being described as primitive, 0:31:50.840 --> 0:31:55.280 but he was. That's what pioneers do, They produced accurate 0:31:55.360 --> 0:31:59.560 primitive work. What about green Black? Was he basically in 0:31:59.600 --> 0:32:02.520 the same out. I didn't see a lot about him. 0:32:02.560 --> 0:32:04.600 I didn't do a lot of research on green Black. 0:32:04.800 --> 0:32:07.440 I just saw that both of them tend to be 0:32:07.760 --> 0:32:12.200 tied together as they kind of split that um that 0:32:12.200 --> 0:32:15.640 that name is the father. Yeah. I saw much more 0:32:15.640 --> 0:32:20.920 on Fochard. Uh should we take a break now, all right? 0:32:20.960 --> 0:32:26.520 We'll take a break and we'll talk about anesthetics and toothbrushes, toothpaste, 0:32:26.840 --> 0:32:49.800 all that good stuff right after this. So, now, Chuck, 0:32:49.880 --> 0:32:52.800 we finally reached the point where dentistry doesn't have to 0:32:52.880 --> 0:32:55.040 be the worst thing that ever happened to you in 0:32:55.080 --> 0:32:58.120 your entire life? Then why is it the worst thing 0:32:58.120 --> 0:33:01.760 that happens to me? Be as you're failing to imagine 0:33:01.800 --> 0:33:04.600 how bad it could be? All right, I got you. Well, 0:33:04.640 --> 0:33:06.960 like we should thank our lucky stars that we were 0:33:07.000 --> 0:33:09.200 born into an era where there's such a thing as 0:33:09.280 --> 0:33:12.680 an anesthetics. Yeah, I mean they did their best back 0:33:12.680 --> 0:33:15.120 in the day. Like we mentioned earlier, they were using plants, 0:33:15.160 --> 0:33:20.080 they're using night shades, they're using opium, hashish, uh, kind 0:33:20.080 --> 0:33:21.840 of whatever they could get their hands on to make 0:33:21.840 --> 0:33:24.760 people feel a little better while you're doing this horrific 0:33:24.800 --> 0:33:28.360 stuff party at the dentist's office. That's right, Uh, you 0:33:28.400 --> 0:33:30.280 would use That's still the best part of when I 0:33:30.520 --> 0:33:33.920 get my implants. You know that like twelve seconds of 0:33:33.960 --> 0:33:36.760 bliss of what do you get? Do they give you 0:33:36.880 --> 0:33:41.520 nitrous twilight sleep? Okay, wow, that's good stuff. Huh And 0:33:42.000 --> 0:33:44.720 with that huh, yeah, you get the I V and 0:33:44.760 --> 0:33:47.800 about eight seconds of you know, the best part of 0:33:47.800 --> 0:33:50.760 your week, and then you wake up in your mouth 0:33:50.880 --> 0:33:53.760 is a little sore, like when you're when you're counting backwards. 0:33:53.840 --> 0:33:57.160 You're like, oh man, they know I'm totally wasted. I know, 0:33:57.200 --> 0:34:01.400 and they're making fun of me. Uh so sleep Sponges 0:34:01.440 --> 0:34:04.640 was another thing they used. They would soak sponges in 0:34:05.520 --> 0:34:08.840 him luck again, opium, man drake whatever they had, and 0:34:08.880 --> 0:34:10.360 then dry it out in the sun and then it 0:34:10.400 --> 0:34:12.839 was just kind of there at your disposal, and when 0:34:12.840 --> 0:34:14.759 you wanted to use it, you would just activate it 0:34:14.800 --> 0:34:17.600 by dipping it in some water, put under their nostrils 0:34:17.680 --> 0:34:22.960 and there you go, goodbye, good night. Um. I also 0:34:23.000 --> 0:34:24.759 didn't know this, and apparently a lot of people don't, 0:34:24.760 --> 0:34:27.760 because I saw it mentioned here there, but nobody seemed 0:34:27.760 --> 0:34:31.399 to have much detail about it. But ether Um, which 0:34:31.400 --> 0:34:34.440 I squarely placed in the nineteenth century, as far as 0:34:34.440 --> 0:34:38.279 anti sex go, was usually known to humans from the 0:34:38.560 --> 0:34:41.040 twelve hundreds. I didn't know that. Yeah, there was an 0:34:41.080 --> 0:34:45.240 alchemist named Raymond Lollis or Raman Lowly. He was Spanish, 0:34:45.280 --> 0:34:47.880 but he was an alchemist, and he somehow stumbled onto 0:34:47.880 --> 0:34:51.120 ether I could not get the details, but he saw that, like, oh, 0:34:51.160 --> 0:34:55.080 this is really good at painkilling. He called it sweet vitriol. 0:34:55.680 --> 0:34:59.040 But um, apparently it was just lost. The knowledge was 0:34:59.120 --> 0:35:03.480 lost to Stree for about five six years, which is 0:35:03.560 --> 0:35:05.640 that's an example of why the Middle Ages or that 0:35:05.719 --> 0:35:07.960 shouldn't be called the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages, 0:35:08.040 --> 0:35:11.040 like that was a discovery. It's just that at the 0:35:11.080 --> 0:35:16.759 time everybody was too stupid to spread that information. I guess, right. Uh. 0:35:16.800 --> 0:35:21.160 And then finally in the seventeen seventies we come upon 0:35:21.320 --> 0:35:25.560 one of the greatest discoveries, nitrous oxide, which is so 0:35:25.600 --> 0:35:28.279 great we did a whole episode on it, so we 0:35:28.320 --> 0:35:30.240 don't really need to go over all of this again. 0:35:30.320 --> 0:35:32.600 But one of the things I don't even know if 0:35:32.640 --> 0:35:35.399 we mentioned back then, because I feel like I would 0:35:35.440 --> 0:35:38.479 have remembered this. But one of the young scientists early 0:35:38.560 --> 0:35:41.840 on who was practicing with it, named Humphrey Davy, uh, 0:35:42.120 --> 0:35:44.480 would put it in a sack to huff and he 0:35:44.600 --> 0:35:50.000 called them paradise bags. What a great name. I think 0:35:50.040 --> 0:35:53.319 I remember saying that. Well, there were you know, the 0:35:53.360 --> 0:35:55.440 long and short of nitris is it sort of came 0:35:55.480 --> 0:35:59.400 and went over the years with various successful demonstrations in 0:35:59.440 --> 0:36:02.160 front of groups of doctors in Dennis, so I'm not 0:36:02.200 --> 0:36:04.759 so successful in front of big groups, and so it 0:36:04.840 --> 0:36:07.800 kind of ebbed and flowed in popularity as a result. Yeah, 0:36:07.960 --> 0:36:12.319 Horace Wells um famously botched the demonstration that set um 0:36:12.800 --> 0:36:17.239 nitrous oxide back a good twenty years basically, but a 0:36:17.280 --> 0:36:23.719 couple of years after that, one of his students, UM W. T. G. Morton, said, Hey, everybody, 0:36:23.840 --> 0:36:28.040 you thought nitrous oxide was something, check out ether And 0:36:28.120 --> 0:36:33.359 he introduced ether um through a demonstration and showed how 0:36:33.400 --> 0:36:36.880 somebody could have a tumor removed without even batting an eyelash, 0:36:36.920 --> 0:36:39.719 and everybody was like, Okay, this ether is pretty good. 0:36:40.000 --> 0:36:43.520 So either ether sotoaked rags were a UM for a 0:36:43.600 --> 0:36:46.359 very long time and anesthetic used in surgery but also 0:36:46.440 --> 0:36:50.279 dentistry too. And then laughing gas kind of UM came 0:36:50.320 --> 0:36:55.160 back about like twenty years after wells is botched demonstration. 0:36:55.480 --> 0:37:00.359 So by the late nineteenth century, the mid late nineteenth century, 0:37:00.560 --> 0:37:04.399 UM we had two very powerful anesthetics that just completely 0:37:04.520 --> 0:37:08.360 changed the course of dentistry and I think allowed people 0:37:08.440 --> 0:37:12.000 to start being like, Okay, I'll I'm willing to start 0:37:12.080 --> 0:37:15.040 like actually going to see a dentist now if they've 0:37:15.080 --> 0:37:18.319 got this stuff to offer, right, and so they said, 0:37:18.360 --> 0:37:20.160 you know it would be even better is if we 0:37:20.160 --> 0:37:24.560 gave them cocaine. Uh. And there was a dentist, an 0:37:24.560 --> 0:37:28.200 American named William Stewart Halstead, who was the first person. 0:37:28.320 --> 0:37:31.680 I guess you know, they noticed, hey, when we're when 0:37:31.719 --> 0:37:33.359 we're taking this stuff and we put it in our mouth, 0:37:33.400 --> 0:37:35.640 it makes our mouth numb. So maybe we can use 0:37:35.680 --> 0:37:39.360 it for dentistry. Right, and so somebody this in the bathroom, 0:37:40.600 --> 0:37:42.440 that's right, and they're like, oh god, this's got such 0:37:42.480 --> 0:37:45.319 a bore. Uh, they injected He was the first one 0:37:45.360 --> 0:37:48.279 to inject it into the patient's gum and jaw for 0:37:48.480 --> 0:37:51.520 pain relief. And so that, you know, following that forward, 0:37:51.560 --> 0:37:56.880 there were a lot of cocaine based toothache remedies. Obviously, Um, 0:37:56.920 --> 0:37:59.719 you know, cocaine had the dark side, so uh, they 0:38:00.040 --> 0:38:04.440 placed it with new cocaine or no vocane and some 0:38:04.520 --> 0:38:07.560 other you know, non addictive pain relievers. But for a 0:38:07.560 --> 0:38:10.880 while there, cocaine was certainly used in dentistry. Yeah. Apparently 0:38:11.040 --> 0:38:15.400 Halsted said that he lost three assistance to cocaine addiction. 0:38:16.080 --> 0:38:19.480 And Dave puts like they actually died and I was 0:38:19.560 --> 0:38:23.320 just thinking, like I can just imagine Halstead like hearing 0:38:23.360 --> 0:38:25.680 like a thump in the other room and just being 0:38:25.719 --> 0:38:30.040 like another one. Can you just imagine like losing three 0:38:30.080 --> 0:38:34.040 of your assistance to overdose deaths from cocaine, shooting up 0:38:34.080 --> 0:38:36.239 cocaine and and like you're just trying to do your 0:38:36.280 --> 0:38:39.480 dentistry practice. And then he threw him in his convertible 0:38:39.520 --> 0:38:43.319 and drove him over to Eric Stoltz's house, right, and 0:38:43.400 --> 0:38:47.280 it all worked out. Man. We got pop culture flying 0:38:47.360 --> 0:38:50.279 all over the place today too. Uh So, now we're 0:38:50.320 --> 0:38:53.360 at toothbrushes and toothpaste sort of a little more in 0:38:53.400 --> 0:38:56.080 earnest in that they you know, we kind of talked 0:38:56.080 --> 0:38:58.120 about the ancient stuff that they would use these tree 0:38:58.680 --> 0:39:02.399 um uh wigs and stuff like that. Gwyneth Paltrow, Yeah, 0:39:02.440 --> 0:39:06.480 Gwyneth Paltrow. Um, they they would use cloth. I think 0:39:06.480 --> 0:39:10.000 the Queen of England use cloth and toothpicks until the 0:39:10.040 --> 0:39:14.880 mid nineteenth century. Basically any kind of um manufacturing process 0:39:14.960 --> 0:39:17.920 kind of didn't make it affordable to even make regular toothbrushes, 0:39:17.960 --> 0:39:21.359 so it's cloth and sponge and rinses and stuff like that. 0:39:22.400 --> 0:39:25.560 But I think they eventually worked out the toothbrush and 0:39:25.600 --> 0:39:29.160 they needed something to put on the toothbrush, at which 0:39:29.200 --> 0:39:34.000 point they said, how about just some really strong uh 0:39:34.280 --> 0:39:38.200 scrubbing what's the word I'm looking for? Bubbles? No, like, 0:39:38.360 --> 0:39:41.920 what's the power? Like an abrace of powder, and they 0:39:42.000 --> 0:39:44.520 use stuff like crushed coral and pumice, but that would 0:39:44.960 --> 0:39:48.000 ruin your teeth after a few weeks really quickly, and 0:39:48.080 --> 0:39:52.160 so um toothpaste came along, and it's still followed that 0:39:52.280 --> 0:39:58.440 same pattern where apparently the earliest incarnations of pepsodent had 0:39:58.520 --> 0:40:01.320 um something that was it was an abrasive that you 0:40:01.360 --> 0:40:05.080 could actually cut glass with. And there was another one, 0:40:05.120 --> 0:40:09.120 another toothpaste called tartar Off, that had hydrochloric acid in it. 0:40:09.920 --> 0:40:12.000 Tartar Off for sure, I mean it would make your 0:40:12.040 --> 0:40:14.200 teeth white, for sure, but then it would eventually wear 0:40:14.280 --> 0:40:17.200 them down to nubs in like a few months. You know. Yeah, 0:40:17.239 --> 0:40:19.080 I think it took a while to kind of um 0:40:20.719 --> 0:40:23.800 find the right balance between protecting the teeth and cleaning 0:40:23.840 --> 0:40:25.440 the teeth at the same time. Yeah, And I mean 0:40:25.440 --> 0:40:27.919 there's still abrasives in your toothpaste today. They've just gotten 0:40:27.920 --> 0:40:30.360 a lot better at getting it just the right amount 0:40:30.400 --> 0:40:32.920 so that, yeah, it doesn't wear your enamel down baking 0:40:32.920 --> 0:40:35.160 soda and stuff like that, right, yeah, And I ran 0:40:35.200 --> 0:40:37.640 across something and I think the A d A website. 0:40:37.960 --> 0:40:43.880 Um that in America, toothpaste and brushing your teeth in 0:40:43.920 --> 0:40:47.280 general did not become widespread. It wasn't like the norm 0:40:47.680 --> 0:40:50.720 until after World War Two. And it was because American 0:40:50.800 --> 0:40:55.360 g i's returned from Europe saying, hey, it's crazy. Everybody 0:40:55.400 --> 0:40:58.520 over in Europe has like actually like nice breath and 0:40:58.560 --> 0:41:00.520 this is how they do it. And that's when it 0:41:00.520 --> 0:41:03.319 really took off from what I and yeah, very cool, 0:41:03.400 --> 0:41:06.160 Yeah it is. It is cool in a way, but 0:41:06.239 --> 0:41:08.680 also like wow in another way, like these are my 0:41:08.719 --> 0:41:13.879 grandparents were talking about. Right, Uh, the greatest generation, that's right, 0:41:13.960 --> 0:41:18.480 the greatest generation. Uh. We can dispel the myth that 0:41:18.560 --> 0:41:22.440 George Washington had wooden teeth. Uh, he had terrible teeth 0:41:22.480 --> 0:41:25.280 and he had a really bad time with his teeth. Uh. 0:41:25.320 --> 0:41:27.680 So he did have fake teeth, but they were I 0:41:27.719 --> 0:41:30.520 think the bases were made from ivory and tusk and 0:41:30.520 --> 0:41:34.160 stuff like that, but the human the teeth were actually 0:41:34.239 --> 0:41:37.800 human teeth. They were from We talked about grave robbing 0:41:37.920 --> 0:41:40.879 in the live episode that we did. They would grave 0:41:40.960 --> 0:41:43.440 rob for teeth. Good teeth. They would people poor people 0:41:43.520 --> 0:41:46.000 that had decent teeth would sell their teeth for money. 0:41:46.080 --> 0:41:50.000 They actually documented that he paid his slaves for teeth, which, 0:41:50.040 --> 0:41:51.680 on the one hand, you're like, oh, that's pretty cool 0:41:51.719 --> 0:41:54.080 he actually paid his slaves rather than said, go bring 0:41:54.120 --> 0:41:57.000 me some of my slaves teeth. But at the same time, 0:41:57.040 --> 0:41:58.719 I was reading about it and they were like, it 0:41:59.000 --> 0:42:00.920 doesn't matter really what he paid him, unless it was 0:42:00.960 --> 0:42:04.160 just some eye popping amount. It's still like it's an 0:42:04.160 --> 0:42:10.680 inherently inequitable transaction. But um, I do feel bad for 0:42:10.719 --> 0:42:15.480 George Washington in that. Um he he apparently kind of 0:42:15.520 --> 0:42:18.640 suffered with his teeth. Like, there's nobody, especially in America, 0:42:18.920 --> 0:42:21.200 whose teeth have ever been talked about and written about 0:42:21.200 --> 0:42:25.640 more than George Washington. You are a close second, but 0:42:25.800 --> 0:42:29.799 he's definitely the first, first place winner. And um he 0:42:29.880 --> 0:42:33.799 apparently one of the reasons why he wore dentures and 0:42:33.840 --> 0:42:36.560 like kind of suffered through this and and and insisted 0:42:36.600 --> 0:42:40.719 on wearing them all the time was because his he 0:42:40.920 --> 0:42:42.960 was the face of this new nation. He was the 0:42:43.000 --> 0:42:47.000 first president, right and at the time it was it 0:42:47.080 --> 0:42:52.480 was um his vitality, his health, his strength was basically 0:42:52.600 --> 0:42:56.160 the same as the nation's health and strength, and so 0:42:56.200 --> 0:42:58.640 for him to show any kind of weakness or problem 0:42:58.760 --> 0:43:02.200 or disease or anything like that would make people wonder like, oh, 0:43:02.280 --> 0:43:05.319 does that also mean that this new American experiment is 0:43:05.360 --> 0:43:08.759 also diseased and problem as problems And so in a 0:43:08.760 --> 0:43:11.200 way like he really kind of carried this burden for 0:43:11.600 --> 0:43:15.160 the country, for the image of the country. But um, yeah, 0:43:15.320 --> 0:43:18.120 his teeth are he had like no teeth by the 0:43:18.120 --> 0:43:19.719 time he was fifty one. They all fell out, and 0:43:19.719 --> 0:43:22.560 they started falling out when he was in his early twenties. 0:43:24.640 --> 0:43:26.239 I was talking to you because I was like, we've 0:43:26.280 --> 0:43:30.640 seen his teeth, and I thought we both actually thought 0:43:30.719 --> 0:43:34.640 that maybe we saw it at the the Memorial Masonic 0:43:34.680 --> 0:43:38.160 Temple and in Old Town Alexandria. But I don't think 0:43:38.160 --> 0:43:40.320 they're there. So we think we saw him in Mountain 0:43:40.400 --> 0:43:42.759 Vernon because supposedly that's where they are. But both of 0:43:42.840 --> 0:43:46.640 us remember seeing them at that Masonic Temple. I've been 0:43:46.680 --> 0:43:48.399 to Mount Vernon a couple of times. I don't remember 0:43:48.440 --> 0:43:51.000 seeing his teeth, So I wonder if we did see 0:43:51.080 --> 0:43:53.439 his teeth at the Masonic Temple and they moved into 0:43:53.480 --> 0:43:56.360 Mountain Vernon and now I'm looking on the internet. It's like, no, 0:43:56.440 --> 0:43:59.440 they're at Mountain Vernon. Silly. Maybe it was a museum 0:43:59.480 --> 0:44:05.719 of sex. They had George Washington's chattering teeth. So now 0:44:05.760 --> 0:44:08.600 we move on to X rays, which were discovered in 0:44:10.160 --> 0:44:13.600 by German scientists. They started using those on the mouth 0:44:13.640 --> 0:44:17.000 pretty quickly, but a thing kind of popped up early 0:44:17.040 --> 0:44:19.399 on that it ended up being bad and that they 0:44:19.440 --> 0:44:22.600 didn't really know how to read X rays that well, 0:44:23.239 --> 0:44:25.920 at least probably everywhere at first, but at least around 0:44:25.960 --> 0:44:30.600 the mouth. And they discovered these things a condition when 0:44:30.600 --> 0:44:32.600 they would take the teeth in the jaw X rays 0:44:33.080 --> 0:44:35.920 where they would find pockets of infection under the gum line, 0:44:37.000 --> 0:44:39.840 which now we just know are I mean, what is 0:44:39.880 --> 0:44:44.080 that just pockets of infection pus mouth pus. Yeah. Um. 0:44:44.120 --> 0:44:48.360 They called them focal infections. And the problem is is, 0:44:48.760 --> 0:44:50.479 I mean, it's a good thing that they spotted these, 0:44:50.520 --> 0:44:52.960 but they didn't know what they were, so they linked 0:44:52.960 --> 0:44:55.200 it to other stuff and other organs of the bodies, 0:44:55.640 --> 0:44:58.960 sometimes the brain even, and it become it became almost 0:44:59.000 --> 0:45:01.680 like a new version of blood letting in that for 0:45:01.719 --> 0:45:04.799 a while, if you had almost anything going wrong with you, 0:45:04.880 --> 0:45:09.319 sometimes and they showed, uh, these these pockets on the 0:45:09.440 --> 0:45:11.759 X ray. They would just pull your teeth like if 0:45:11.760 --> 0:45:14.480 you had a kidney disorder, they would pull your teeth first. Yeah, 0:45:14.520 --> 0:45:17.000 there was a guy who was apparently one of the 0:45:17.080 --> 0:45:21.520 leading proponents and practitioners of this focal infection hysteria. His 0:45:21.600 --> 0:45:25.920 name was Henry Cotton. He worked at the New Jersey 0:45:26.000 --> 0:45:28.560 State Lunatic Asylum is what they called at the time, 0:45:28.920 --> 0:45:32.719 between nineteen oh seven and nineteen thirty and he he 0:45:32.840 --> 0:45:37.440 and his team pulled eleven thousand human teeth during that time, 0:45:37.880 --> 0:45:41.640 including his own teeth, his wife's teeth, his children's teeth, 0:45:41.840 --> 0:45:44.799 but mostly inmates of this asylum. And the idea was 0:45:44.880 --> 0:45:47.080 that that infection had gone to your brain, so you 0:45:47.080 --> 0:45:48.759 had to pull the teeth out around it to treat 0:45:48.760 --> 0:45:52.080 the infection to cure your mental illness. And it just 0:45:52.120 --> 0:45:55.760 so happens, Chuck, that our good friend, our dear friend, 0:45:56.080 --> 0:45:59.719 beloved friend, John Hodgman played that man on the TV 0:45:59.760 --> 0:46:04.040 show of the Nick Oh, that's true, was that his character? Yeah, 0:46:04.120 --> 0:46:07.400 that guy existed in real life Hodgman's character and I 0:46:07.440 --> 0:46:10.360 read I came across a mention of it in Paste 0:46:10.400 --> 0:46:15.200 magazine said that um Hodgman played Henry Cotton quote with 0:46:15.360 --> 0:46:20.000 perfect offhand authority. I think it's one. But yeah, I 0:46:20.040 --> 0:46:22.640 didn't remember that he was playing Henry Cotton, this guy 0:46:22.719 --> 0:46:26.000 who was just pulling eleven thousand teeth from people over 0:46:26.160 --> 0:46:29.160 twenty three years to cure their mental illness, which is nuts, 0:46:29.320 --> 0:46:32.759 but it actually happened. You have to text him let 0:46:32.800 --> 0:46:37.160 him know we were talking about his acting career. I will. 0:46:37.280 --> 0:46:39.319 I'm sure he'll hear it when this comes out. He 0:46:39.400 --> 0:46:42.399 listens to every episode. The moment that really doesn't, someone 0:46:42.440 --> 0:46:45.279 will let him know. Uh. And then we wind out 0:46:45.320 --> 0:46:49.040 to kind of a guy who um weirdly ended up 0:46:49.080 --> 0:46:52.479 being uh for the wrong reasons, the person who changed 0:46:52.560 --> 0:46:55.680 dentistry for the better, and that he was not a 0:46:55.719 --> 0:46:58.839 good dentist. And he was came along at a time 0:46:58.880 --> 0:47:01.520 when the a d A had just formed in eighteen 0:47:01.560 --> 0:47:04.200 fifty nine. They met at Niagara Falls formed the a 0:47:04.280 --> 0:47:07.600 d A in eighteen sixty six. They said, you can't 0:47:08.520 --> 0:47:11.200 use you can't be a snake oil salesman anymore. You 0:47:11.239 --> 0:47:16.640 can't have these advertisements and personally solicit uh business like 0:47:16.760 --> 0:47:18.839 we gotta we gotta kind of put ourselves up there 0:47:18.840 --> 0:47:22.040 with the doctors guys and not do this stuff. And 0:47:22.080 --> 0:47:24.879 a dude came along that defied all that so much 0:47:24.920 --> 0:47:28.520 so that they really started to sort of codify and 0:47:28.560 --> 0:47:30.319 put that stuff in the rear view mirror. Well, they 0:47:30.320 --> 0:47:32.879 were trying to figure out how to differentiate themselves from 0:47:32.880 --> 0:47:35.400 just people who pulled teeth for a living but didn't 0:47:35.400 --> 0:47:39.400 go to dental school. And it's hard to do that, um. 0:47:39.520 --> 0:47:42.640 And they a way to do that is defined a 0:47:42.719 --> 0:47:46.080 scapegoat and point out how terrible they are, to to 0:47:46.320 --> 0:47:49.000 use them as an example of how great you are, 0:47:49.320 --> 0:47:51.239 right to make yourselves look good. And that's what they 0:47:51.280 --> 0:47:55.040 did with this guy, Edgar Randolph Painless Parker, who was 0:47:55.239 --> 0:47:58.319 very much as snake oil salesman, a charlatan. He was 0:47:58.360 --> 0:48:01.680 of the m of the kind of dentists that he 0:48:01.760 --> 0:48:04.400 actually did go to dental school. But he he was like, 0:48:04.600 --> 0:48:07.680 I'm losing money to these these tooth pullers, these tooth drawers, 0:48:07.680 --> 0:48:10.080 so I'm gonna start advertising again, and I think while 0:48:10.080 --> 0:48:12.000 I'm at it all, start making sneak coil and all 0:48:12.040 --> 0:48:14.400 that stuff. Um. But he was of the school where 0:48:14.600 --> 0:48:19.160 you would just like fill a tooth um with a 0:48:19.320 --> 0:48:23.600 like like amalgam, say mercury or something like that. And um, 0:48:23.680 --> 0:48:25.879 you wouldn't get rid of any of the decay, well 0:48:25.960 --> 0:48:28.799 you would, your face would still rot off regardless. But yes, 0:48:28.880 --> 0:48:32.040 your dental visit was painless because they didn't they didn't 0:48:32.080 --> 0:48:35.279 scrape out any of the cavity to start. Um, that's 0:48:35.280 --> 0:48:37.439 who they were competing against. So they used this guy 0:48:37.520 --> 0:48:40.319 to basically say all this stuff. This guy is doing. 0:48:40.400 --> 0:48:43.640 This guy right here, that's not dentistry. Come over here. 0:48:43.840 --> 0:48:46.440 What we're doing is actual dentistry. It's going to help 0:48:46.480 --> 0:48:50.160 your health. Yeah, and he like, like you said, he 0:48:50.200 --> 0:48:52.880 went to dental school. He went to the Philadelphia Dental College, 0:48:53.400 --> 0:48:56.200 but apparently he literally did not pass, like he would 0:48:56.200 --> 0:48:58.799 not have earned a degree had he not gone, and 0:48:58.880 --> 0:49:02.320 begged the dan to let him through. And I guess 0:49:02.320 --> 0:49:05.160 he sounds like sort of a squeaky wheel kind and 0:49:05.200 --> 0:49:06.880 I think they just wanted to be rid of him, 0:49:06.920 --> 0:49:09.480 so they said, fine, here's your degree. And so that's 0:49:09.480 --> 0:49:11.520 when he went to Canada and sat in an empty 0:49:11.520 --> 0:49:14.960 office because he couldn't he wasn't losing, like patients were 0:49:15.000 --> 0:49:17.319 coming and leaving, like he didn't have any patients to 0:49:17.360 --> 0:49:21.400 begin with. And um, so yeah, he started doing the 0:49:21.400 --> 0:49:23.680 snake whole thing, and he literally went back in time 0:49:24.400 --> 0:49:28.440 to become like a dental drawer and had these big 0:49:29.120 --> 0:49:32.120 sort of tooth pulling events and parties with the band 0:49:32.280 --> 0:49:34.800 just like they were in the heyday in the early 0:49:34.840 --> 0:49:39.640 eighteenth century, same same exact thing. Unbelievable. He also supposedly 0:49:39.640 --> 0:49:42.719 wore a necklace of three hundred and fifty seven extracted 0:49:42.719 --> 0:49:48.600 teeth that he supposedly pulled all in one day, which 0:49:48.640 --> 0:49:51.680 is what I made for a good live show. Oh well, 0:49:51.719 --> 0:49:54.400 let's save it. I don't think so this is all 0:49:54.440 --> 0:49:56.400 the makings of a great live show. Well, there's a 0:49:56.440 --> 0:49:59.000 whole thing. I agreed. There's a whole thing that we 0:49:59.080 --> 0:50:01.720 didn't even get to talk about called the amalgam Wars, 0:50:01.760 --> 0:50:03.440 which I think we're going to do with short stuff 0:50:03.440 --> 0:50:06.480 on because it was pretty interesting too. All right, Okay, 0:50:06.800 --> 0:50:09.520 I'm up. I'm up for it. So that's if for 0:50:09.640 --> 0:50:12.640 now for the history of dentistry. This may be an 0:50:12.640 --> 0:50:15.839 ongoing thing. Who knows? And uh, since I said this 0:50:15.880 --> 0:50:18.400 may be an ongoing thing, who knows? It's time of 0:50:18.440 --> 0:50:26.520 course for listener mail, I'm gonna call this I missed 0:50:26.560 --> 0:50:30.040 opportunity for a pavement reference. Oh yeah, I saw this one. 0:50:30.200 --> 0:50:33.520 Did you see this? This is from Alan Coleman, and 0:50:33.560 --> 0:50:35.279 this is about the Salem witch Trials. And I can't 0:50:35.280 --> 0:50:37.920 believe I walked right past this because this this is 0:50:37.960 --> 0:50:39.759 one of my favorite Pavement songs. He said, Hey, guys, 0:50:39.800 --> 0:50:42.040 love the podcast. I'm not one of those the chairs 0:50:42.120 --> 0:50:43.920 being able to send into correction, so this isn't one 0:50:43.920 --> 0:50:46.600 of those. I listened to Salem Witchcraft Trials and notice 0:50:46.640 --> 0:50:50.439 an unexpected omission being a big pavement in Silver Jeice Fan. 0:50:51.040 --> 0:50:52.759 For the majority of my life, I enjoy hearing your 0:50:52.760 --> 0:50:55.040 references occasionally. So I saw the title and I knew 0:50:55.520 --> 0:50:57.880 that you had mentioned the Pavement song Give It a Day, 0:50:57.920 --> 0:51:01.040 which is about Increase and Cotton Mather. Uh good work. 0:51:01.320 --> 0:51:04.839 Stay alert for those possible Pavement references. And I'm gonna 0:51:04.840 --> 0:51:07.480 read the first verse of that song because I know 0:51:07.560 --> 0:51:09.960 this song and it never really occurred to me. That's 0:51:09.960 --> 0:51:12.920 why I didn't get the ref in the episode. But 0:51:13.000 --> 0:51:16.879 it's kind of the most pavement of all Pavement songs, Uh. 0:51:17.000 --> 0:51:19.480 Increased mother told her dad. By the way he says 0:51:19.520 --> 0:51:23.600 her dad, I roundly disagree with you. Your vocals styles 0:51:23.640 --> 0:51:27.160 too preachy, and the yokels mock your teaching, but Cotton 0:51:27.239 --> 0:51:30.200 he was just so oblivious to all their cutting. Please. 0:51:30.600 --> 0:51:32.960 Soon the town folk took to it, and every pew 0:51:32.960 --> 0:51:35.480 they looked to him for guidance, just like eyeless lambs 0:51:35.800 --> 0:51:40.239 awaiting that old kebab. Stand the skeptics formed the nation's born. 0:51:40.719 --> 0:51:43.440 They want to have it Cotton's dream, but Increase had 0:51:43.480 --> 0:51:46.400 them mounted and they burned on open fires. So the 0:51:46.400 --> 0:51:49.719 words spread, just like smallpox in the Sudan, and the 0:51:49.760 --> 0:51:53.000 gentry cried, give it a day, Give it a day, 0:51:53.280 --> 0:51:57.160 Give it a day. That sounds pretty pavement. You're You're right, 0:51:57.760 --> 0:52:00.399 it's even when you listen to it, it's like it's 0:52:00.440 --> 0:52:04.080 like Steve Malcomus. It is most words, smithy working all 0:52:04.160 --> 0:52:10.080 those words in there album. Uh. I think that was 0:52:10.120 --> 0:52:12.200 from an EP If I'm not mistaken, it wasn't on 0:52:12.480 --> 0:52:15.120 a regular LP. I've definitely not heard that one, but 0:52:15.200 --> 0:52:17.280 thanks to Alan Coleman for that. I walked right past 0:52:17.320 --> 0:52:19.279 that way to go to Bob in Nostanovitch. If you're 0:52:19.320 --> 0:52:21.719 listening there, you go, uh, Well, if you want to 0:52:21.719 --> 0:52:23.640 get in touch with this like Alan did, or if 0:52:23.680 --> 0:52:26.200 you want to say hi and you're Bob Nostandovitch Chuck 0:52:26.239 --> 0:52:30.480 always likes hearing from you, Bob, Please right in. You 0:52:30.520 --> 0:52:33.240 can get in touch with this via email at stuff 0:52:33.280 --> 0:52:39.520 podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know 0:52:39.640 --> 0:52:42.560 is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my 0:52:42.600 --> 0:52:46.040 heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or 0:52:46.040 --> 0:52:47.840 wherever you listen to your favorite shows.