PAINFUL DENTISTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 138, 14 June 1933, Page 22

PAINFUL DENTISTRY

FAMOUS DOCTOR'S TALK

Sir Wilfred Grcnfell, doctor, missionary,' and pioneer of Labrador, was recently the chief guest and speaker at the monthly luncheon of the Balloon Street Luncheon Club, Manchester, a club for officials of the national cooperative organisations with headquarters in Manchester, to whom he described how co-operative trading was started in Labrador (states the "Manchester Guardian"). Describing the truck system that had prevailed in Labrador, Sir Wilfred said that the merchants did not pay in cash, but in credit, and he had seen pieces of. old tin. cans stamped as worth so many cents on teuder at a particular store.. There were people in Labrador who did not knefw the difference between sixpence and a penny, and, in ignornnco of the worth of goods, had had to take tho merchants' price. Ono of the results of this* credit system, ho pointed out, Was that there were people in Labrador who wore in debt when they were born. Sir AVilfred said he called a meeting at which all the fishermen were too much afraid to speak in the presence of tho merchants, except one man, who had been an overseas fisherman. He asked whether, if the "copper store" (as a co-operative undertaking was known) bought a barrel of flour for four dollars would they charge the customer ten for it? The replies to that question sent tho fishermen homo talking of what wonderful things were going to bo clone through the new method of trading. Sir AVilfred said he afterwards came to Manchester to learn about co-opera-tion, and had a stamp made in Ottawa depicting clasped hands with a codfish over the top, which was still used as a token at the Labrador co-operative stores. Sir Wilfred recounted some of his medical experiences, admitting that he did not like the' dentistry he had had to do. On one occasion a man with an abscess in his jaw came to him. The speaker, to get his mouth open, had to make some wood wedges, and jam one after another in with a hammer. until he got the patient's mouth opeii. Having no forceps available, he could not get tho tooth out, could ot even hold it, so all he could, do wag to offer to knock it out, to Which the patient agreed. The operation was performed with chisel and hammer, the doctor having to hold the patient's head on. his knee. "The most grateful patient I ever had," was Sir Wilfred's) comment. Sir Wilfred made the following reference to the President of tho United States (Mr. Franklin Roosevelt) whom ho knows well: "This man is a Christian man, and'when he said the other night that he asked God to give him the wisdom and strength to do tho right, thing to make America a goocl neighbour to the rest of the world he meant every bit of it."