Roaming in quest of novelty through that mine of marvels, a Chinese
city, we were a witness the other day of a strange but not uncommon
scene. We had halted in front of the stall of a street apothecary,
surgeon, and general practitioner, and were turning over with our eyes
his stock of simples, dragons' teeth, tigers'-claws, and like drugs
used as ingredients in the native pharmacopoeia, when along came a
man, holding his hand up to his jaw, and apparently in great pain. He
sat down by the doctor and explained to him that he was suffering with
the toothache, to get rid of which he would like to have his tooth
removed. The doctor opened his patient's mouth and inspected the
aching tooth; then he took a small phial from his stock of medicines,
and into the palm of his hand he shook a few scruples of a
pink-coloured powder. He next licked his finger and dipped it into the
powder, and inserting this into the man's mouth, rubbed it on the
aching tooth and gum. He repeated this three or four times, and then
concluded by turning the patient's head upside down; when, to the no
small astonishment of many of the bystanders, among whom was
apparently the man himself, the tooth dropped out and fell upon the
ground. The doctor then asked him if he had felt any pain, to which he
replied that he had not, and the payment of a small fee brought the
_seance_ to a close. At our application the tooth was picked up and
very civilly exhibited to us by the owner himself; it was evidently
fresh from a human jaw, though there had not been the slightest
effusion of blood from the man's mouth. The thought had naturally
suggested itself to us that the whole thing was a hoax, and that the
patient was an accomplice; but if so, the doctor was no novice at
sleight of hand, and the expression of astonishment on the other man's
face when he found his tooth gone, was as perfect a specimen of
histrionic emotion as it has ever been our lot to behold.
That night we had visions of a large establishment in Regent Street,
with an enormous placard announcing "Painless Dentistry" over the
door, and crowds of dukes and duchesses mounting and descending our
stairs to have their teeth extracted by some mysterious process
imported from China, and known to ourselves alone. Next day we
proceeded to rummage through our Chinese medical library and see what
we could hunt up on the subject of dentistry. The result of this
search we generously offer to our readers, thus, perhaps, sacrificing
the chance of securing a colossal fortune.
In the "New Collection of Tried Prescriptions," a sort of domestic
medicine published for the use of families in cases of emergency when
no physician is at hand, we find the following remarks:--
Method for Extracting Aching Teeth.
"A tooth ought not to be taken out, for by doing so the remaining
teeth will be loosened. If the pain is very acute and interferes
with eating or drinking, then the tooth may be extracted;
otherwise, it should be left. Take a bream about ten ounces in
weight, rip it open and insert 1/10 of an ounce of powdered
arsenic. Then sew up the body and hang it up in the wind where it
is not exposed to the sun or accessible to cats and rats. After
being thus hung for seven days, a kind of hoar-frost will have
formed upon the scales of the fish. Preserve this, using for each
tooth about as much as covers one scale. When required, spread it
on a piece of any kind of plaster, press it with the finger on to
the aching place, and let it stick there. Then let the patient
cough, and the tooth will fall out of itself. This prescription
has been tested by Dr. Wang."
Another Method.
"Take a head of garlic and pound it up to a pulp. Mix it up
thoroughly with one or two candareens' weight of white dragon's
bones, and apply it to the suffering part. In a little while the
tooth will drop out."
It will be noticed that the above descriptions are neither without one
or other of two characteristics always to be found in the composition
of Chinese remedies. In the first recipe, the ingredients are simple
enough, and all this is required is time, seven days being necessary
for its preparation. Now, as it is very unlikely that any one would
collect the "hoar-frost" deposit from the scales of a bream stuffed
with arsenic, in anticipation of a future toothache, and as he would
probably have got well long before the expiration of the seven days if
he set to work to make his medicine only when the tooth began to ache,
the genius of the physician and the efficacy of the recipe are alike
secure from attack. In the second case, the very existence of one of
the drugs mentioned is, to say the least, apocryphal; and although
such can be purchased at the shops of native druggists, any complaint
on the part of a duped patient would be met by the simple answer, that
the white dragon's bones he bought could not possibly have been
genuine!
A few days after the above incident, we returned to the dentist's
stall, and asked him if he had any powder that would draw out a tooth
by mere application to the gum or to the tooth itself? He replied that
such a powder certainly existed, and was commonly manufactured in all
parts of China, but that he himself was out of it at the moment. He
added, that if we would call again on the 4th of the 4th moon, before
12 o'clock in the day, he should be in a position to satisfy our
demands.
In conclusion, we append a quotation from the _China Review_, which
appeared in print after our own sketch was written:--
"Despite the oft-repeated assertion as to painless, or at least
easy, dentistry in China, very few people seem prepared to admit
that teeth are constantly extracted in the way described by (I
think) a former correspondent of the _Review_. He stated that a
white powder was rubbed on the gums of the patient, after which
the tooth was easily pulled from its socket; and this I can
substantiate, noting, however, that the action of the powder
(corrosive sublimate) is not quite so rapid as represented. A
short time since I witnessed an operation of this kind. The
operator rubbed the powder on the gum as described, but then
directed the patient to wait a little. After perhaps ten minutes'
interval, he again rubbed the gum, and then, introducing his thumb
into the mouth, pressed heavily against the tooth (which was a
large molar). The man winced for a second as I heard the 'click'
of the separation, but almost before he could cry out, the dentist
gripped the tooth with his forefinger and thumb, and with very
little violence pulled it out. The gum bled considerably, and I
examined the tooth so as to satisfy myself that there was no
deception. It had an abscess at the root of the fang, and was
undoubtedly what it professed to be. When the operation was over,
the patient washed his mouth out with _cold_ water, paid fifteen
cash and departed."