CHINESE DENTISTS
Li- t.'!-..■ L'hiness can boast that nothinsj is now i them, and that ail the arts and sciences .ire old stories in China, it is stiil true that for operations in dentistry an Ameiican or a European would hardly care to 50 to a Chinese. The work 13 ludicrously primitive. The operator extracts all teoth with his fingers, and it must be admitted that his suoco63 is astonishing. From youth to manhood ha is trained to pull pegs from a wooden board. This training changes the* aspect of the hand, and gives the student a finger grip amazing in its strength, equivalent, in fact, to a. lifting power of three or four hundred pounds. For toothache he employ? opium, peppermiat oil, cinnamon oil, and ciqv-e oil. Ho sometimes fills teeth, but doss to so bonglingly that the fillings stay in only a iew months. An element of superstition runs through all the work. According to the system all dental. woes are brought on by "tooth worms. The nerve pulp is such a worm, and is always shown to the patient For humbugging purposes, also, the dentist carries about in his pocket some white grubs, and after he has extracted a tooth he shows a grub to the suSerer_as the cause of ail the trouble. *""
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19191226.2.65
Bibliographic details
Evening Star, Issue 17234, 26 December 1919, Page 6
Word Count
216
CHINESE DENTISTS
Evening Star, Issue 17234, 26 December 1919, Page 6
Allied Press Ltd is the copyright owner for the Evening Star. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons New Zealand BY-NC-SA licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Allied Press Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in