Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 August 1893 — AN UNUSUAL ANÆSTHETIC. [ARTICLE]

AN UNUSUAL ANÆSTHETIC.

The Dentist Entertains His Traveling: Companion. The drummer had told a commercial story, and the dentist, who had been extracting much pleasure therefrom, followed with a professional yarn. “At one time in my early practice in a country town,” he said, “there came to me a very nervous woman to have a tooth extracted. She carried on so that I could scarcely get her into the chair, and as soon as I put the forceps near her mouth, she screamed and bounced around so I couldn’t do anything with her. After two or three visits, each worse than the other, I suggested that I take her to the nearest large town where a dentist administered gas. Well, the tooth hurt her so that at last she consented, and I took her there, about twenty-five miles by rail. I went armed with a pair of forceps, as a matter of habit, and when we got to the place and she saw the gas bag and the other appliances, she had them again worse than before, and I had to give It up and take her back home. I was thoroughly provoked and felt like taking a club to her, but she had money and was paying for her foolishness, so I tried to restrain my feelings. About ten miles out from the town as the train was plugging along about twenty miles an hour, and she was holding her jaw and I was holding mine; in the seat beside her, we struck a broken rail and the last thing I knew we were rolling down an embankment and being piled up at the bottom In a very promiscuous fashion. I don’t know how it came about, but I wasn't hurt much and when my, senses were fully restored I dragged my patient out through a window and laid her on a bank near by. She was pretty badly bruised and had been knocked senseless, and as I was endeavoring to restore her a brilliant thought occurred to me. The next moment I had out my forceps and the next I had out the confounded tooth. Two hours later one of the physicians who had been summoned had restored her to consciousness, and as she opened her eyes and saw me standing by her side, she clapped her hand to her jaw and exclaimed: “ ‘Oh, Doctor, I knew it would be terrible, but I did’t think it would be so bad as that. However, though, it is out at last.’ “Then she went to sleep and it was a week before she knew the real facts in the case.” “Did she pay you anything extra?” queried the drummer, doubtfully. “No,” smiled the dentist, “but the raliroad company did, $5,000, and I got half. ”