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Painless Parker and the Dental Circus · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Shout out to our super
0:34
Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegrum. Shout out to our super producer, the
0:38
Speaker 1: one and only Max Williams. I'm ben. I guess I
0:43
Speaker 1: should I should come clean. I put off some dental
0:45
Speaker 1: work during the pandemic. And when I when I came
0:48
Speaker 1: back to the dentist chair, who was the trip man? Well,
0:53
Speaker 1: I put on some weight during the pandemic. Is that
0:56
Speaker 1: the same thing? No, I know it's not, but it's
0:58
Speaker 1: common right. People let things go during these quarantine times,
1:03
Speaker 1: and dental work certainly is one of them. I think
1:05
Speaker 1: we don't remember which show was on, but we've talked
1:07
Speaker 1: recently about I'm no by the way, uh dentals, I
1:10
Speaker 1: know what it was. It was. We did a stuff
1:11
Speaker 1: that I want you to know episode recently about the
1:14
Speaker 1: kind of weird world of dentistry fraud, which is kind
1:18
Speaker 1: of a thing, and this sort of rolls into that
1:20
Speaker 1: there's some dentistry fraud going on in today's story, but
1:23
Speaker 1: also some weird historical, kind of positive things that came
1:27
Speaker 1: from this fraud. What are we talking about. We're talking
1:30
Speaker 1: about the life of a dude named Painless Parker. That
1:35
Speaker 1: was not his Christian name. We'll get to that. His
1:38
Speaker 1: name is Edgar Parker. That's what he was born in
1:41
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two. As but yeah, this guy was basically
1:45
Speaker 1: what you might call a circus dentist. What does that mean, Well,
1:51
Speaker 1: we'll tell you, yes, circus dentist. And and it's a phrase.
1:53
Speaker 1: We can back up this This entire this entire circus
2:00
Speaker 1: uh comes about because when Parker opens his practice back
2:05
Speaker 1: in two it's not an immediate hit. His business is
2:10
Speaker 1: struggling a little bit, and so he figures he has
2:13
Speaker 1: to do something else and he starts thinking outside of
2:18
Speaker 1: the box. That's what leads us to real life dental circus.
2:23
Speaker 1: As we dive into the story, I want to point
2:26
Speaker 1: out we're getting a lot of this information from several sources.
2:30
Speaker 1: Smithsonian Magazine in particular, with the great title remember when
2:34
Speaker 1: teeth pulling was fun? As well as Mental floss and
2:38
Speaker 1: the Santa Cruz Sentinel. That's right, there's also a New
2:41
Speaker 1: York Times article. Was Painless Parker a vaudeville joke or
2:44
Speaker 1: a real Brooklyn Dentist by Michael Pollock and a series
2:48
Speaker 1: of books written by Peter M. Pointage and Art N. G. Kristen,
2:52
Speaker 1: who are dental historians. Um, just wanted to knock that
2:55
Speaker 1: out here at the top, but yeah, it's true, Ben Um.
2:58
Speaker 1: So this guy, Edgar Parker, he studied dentistry at what
3:02
Speaker 1: today is Temple University. He was born in New Brunswick, Canada,
3:08
Speaker 1: in the town of Tynemouth Creek, which is on the
3:11
Speaker 1: shores there of New Brunswick, Canada. Edgar Rudolph Randolph Parker.
3:16
Speaker 1: He's got a Rudolph and a Randolph there just to
3:18
Speaker 1: just to be safe. But his family was very religious
3:23
Speaker 1: and he was he entered into initially for school Baptist
3:27
Speaker 1: seminary at St. Martin's and he was he was actually
3:31
Speaker 1: expelled for what was referred to as un christian like behavior. Um.
3:36
Speaker 1: He had also spent some time as a sailor and
3:40
Speaker 1: apparently cursed like one while in seminary. That that is,
3:43
Speaker 1: that is my conjecture there. But I can only imagine
3:46
Speaker 1: what the sailor like behavior that led to him being
3:48
Speaker 1: expelled from seminary might have been. Anything really could have
3:52
Speaker 1: been the jokes, right right, Maybe, I mean, yeah, there
3:58
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things that would have sounded
4:01
Speaker 1: absolutely normal to us in that may have been you know,
4:05
Speaker 1: absolutely scandalous for him to say during this time. So
4:11
Speaker 1: he he is terrified of going back home to his
4:14
Speaker 1: folks and saying I got kicked out of seminary. Instead,
4:19
Speaker 1: he becomes. Instead, he discovers his hustle, and it's a
4:23
Speaker 1: hustle that'll have for the rest of his life. He
4:25
Speaker 1: becomes a door to door salesman, and his boss directs
4:30
Speaker 1: him to never like never leave people alone until they
4:34
Speaker 1: buy something from him, and his father eventually catches up
4:39
Speaker 1: with him eight nine. He is not over the moon
4:43
Speaker 1: that his son has become a door to door salesman
4:46
Speaker 1: rather than a preacher, so he drags him home. Kids
4:50
Speaker 1: seventeen years old, runs away again, goes to see catches
4:54
Speaker 1: dan gay fever. He's dropped off in Barbadosrhe right, that's
5:00
Speaker 1: it's like the dangay fever. Uh that you may be
5:03
Speaker 1: thinking of dysenterry Maybe what's but I thought dangay fever
5:06
Speaker 1: had something to do with like he can give you
5:11
Speaker 1: bleeding flu like symptoms and rashes. Okay, okay, so no, no,
5:17
Speaker 1: not necessarily the direa. Sorry, thank you for setting me
5:20
Speaker 1: straight back. He's he's now stricken with this unfortunate illness
5:24
Speaker 1: while in the midst of trying to get his life
5:26
Speaker 1: back together, I imagine, right, yeah, and the doctors who
5:30
Speaker 1: are taking care of him impress him. You know. He
5:33
Speaker 1: feels like they saved his life. He feels like this
5:37
Speaker 1: maybe the most important vocation in the world. And so
5:42
Speaker 1: when he gets back from another misadventure, he asked his parents, Hey,
5:47
Speaker 1: can I can I be a doctor? I think that's
5:51
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's my path forward in life.
5:53
Speaker 1: But what does what does his folks do? Well, they
5:56
Speaker 1: were not a family of particular means. They thought it
5:59
Speaker 1: was a little price to go to medical school, but
6:02
Speaker 1: they figured they could, you know, spring for the next
6:04
Speaker 1: best thing, which was sort of an emerging feel at
6:07
Speaker 1: the time, the field of dentistry um, which he later
6:12
Speaker 1: according to a fabulous article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel
6:16
Speaker 1: in Santa Cruz, they also spent some time. There's going
6:18
Speaker 1: to come up in our story soon. He referred to
6:21
Speaker 1: it as the noble tooth plumbing profession, plumb the depths
6:25
Speaker 1: of of the Noble tooth Um, so he enrolled at
6:29
Speaker 1: an initially New York College of Dentistry. He again didn't
6:33
Speaker 1: have very much money. He had just enough to pay
6:35
Speaker 1: for tuition, but didn't really have enough to eat, so
6:37
Speaker 1: he kind of had to figure out a side hustle
6:40
Speaker 1: to to make ends meet. And so he I don't
6:43
Speaker 1: know if we've mentioned this, but the school of traveling
6:47
Speaker 1: salesmanship that he ascribed to was sort of that like
6:50
Speaker 1: stick your foot in the door and don't take no
6:52
Speaker 1: for an answer situation. So he essentially adapted that mentality
6:57
Speaker 1: to a door to door dental practice. US Before he
7:01
Speaker 1: had even gotten his credentials, which was very common at
7:04
Speaker 1: the time, many of the dentists that were practicing were
7:07
Speaker 1: unlicensed because there really wasn't a whole lot of official
7:11
Speaker 1: oversight yet because it was a relatively new field and
7:15
Speaker 1: preventative dental care was really practically a non existent thing.
7:21
Speaker 1: So he ends up going to Philadelphia Dental College next.
7:27
Speaker 1: This is prestigious. This is the second oldest school of
7:33
Speaker 1: its sort in the country. And you know, as you said, Noel,
7:37
Speaker 1: that's now known as the Temple University Maurice H. Kornberg
7:42
Speaker 1: School of dentistry. Santa Cruz Sentinel asked the dean of
7:47
Speaker 1: the college, Dr amid Ismail, how Parker was during his
7:52
Speaker 1: time there, and he said Parker was a terrible student
7:57
Speaker 1: and that he only graduated because he literally begged the
8:01
Speaker 1: dean at that time to pass him, which I didn't
8:05
Speaker 1: know you could do. Yeah, it seems like this is
8:08
Speaker 1: a very tender hearted dean, you know to be says
8:10
Speaker 1: I've I've I've never gotten out of any uh college
8:14
Speaker 1: failures by begging I or or maybe this guy's gift
8:21
Speaker 1: of oration was just so profound that it worked. He's
8:25
Speaker 1: been door to door, he was almost ah, well, he
8:28
Speaker 1: was almost a preacher, So maybe just leveraged those skills. Anyway,
8:33
Speaker 1: fast forward, he's twenty years old. He graduates, as he said,
8:37
Speaker 1: eight nine ninety two, the same year he opens his practice.
8:41
Speaker 1: He returns home and he thinks, Okay, I'm gonna do
8:48
Speaker 1: things differently. I'm an innovator. He's saying to himself, what
8:54
Speaker 1: is he? What does he innovator? First? Well, first of all,
8:58
Speaker 1: I want to point out one thing that I think
8:59
Speaker 1: is really fascinating about his time as a as a
9:02
Speaker 1: door to door dentist, and by the way. He also
9:05
Speaker 1: opened up his very first office before he even finished
9:09
Speaker 1: dental school properly, like on seventeenth and Broadway in New York.
9:13
Speaker 1: But when he found a procedure that he didn't have
9:17
Speaker 1: the skills to perform, he promised to come back later.
9:21
Speaker 1: And the indication there was that, you know, once he
9:24
Speaker 1: got to that chapter in the in the textbook that
9:26
Speaker 1: he was studying, because again, very very early, not a
9:30
Speaker 1: whole lot of technology really involved in dentistry and certainly
9:35
Speaker 1: not very effective pain management, you know, medications and in
9:40
Speaker 1: the like. Um so, yeah, we've got him finally getting
9:44
Speaker 1: out of school at the age of twenty in eighteen
9:47
Speaker 1: ninety two. He comes home, he hooks up with a druggist,
9:53
Speaker 1: a guy by the name of George Mallory. And I
9:55
Speaker 1: think you're talking about innovations, Ben, and I was talking
9:58
Speaker 1: about the lack of pain medication. We don't have no
10:02
Speaker 1: vacane yet for quite some time, but we you may
10:06
Speaker 1: know that cocaine was a hell of a drug then
10:10
Speaker 1: as well as it is today, and was used in
10:12
Speaker 1: the dental profession. It was actually used for quite some time.
10:16
Speaker 1: Uh they called a pharmaceutical grade cocaine and it was
10:19
Speaker 1: something that um you would find in dental offices, maybe
10:22
Speaker 1: even as recently as the nineteen eighties. But he and
10:25
Speaker 1: George Mallory, the druggist, tinkered around with a formula and
10:29
Speaker 1: ended up with a deluded solution of cocaine that they
10:34
Speaker 1: called hydrocane, and it is considered the kind of precursor
10:39
Speaker 1: to novocaine. And it was a very very modern innovation
10:44
Speaker 1: for the time. And so it came to pass that
10:48
Speaker 1: Parker was prepared to be on like the bleeding edge
10:53
Speaker 1: of dentistry. But as I said, at the very top,
10:58
Speaker 1: nobody showed up to his job. It was like the
11:03
Speaker 1: nicest restaurant that no one ate at. And so he
11:07
Speaker 1: was worried that maybe some maybe there are hints that
11:12
Speaker 1: maybe his reputation for being kicked out a seminary had
11:17
Speaker 1: something to do with this, or maybe that was just
11:19
Speaker 1: all in his mind. He said, Okay, I've got either way.
11:22
Speaker 1: He decided he's got to be embedded in the culture.
11:27
Speaker 1: He's got to be embedded in the society around him,
11:29
Speaker 1: rather right, because usually people like to work with folks
11:33
Speaker 1: they already know. So he starts going to church, not
11:36
Speaker 1: just on Sundays, but twice on Sundays. He's trying to
11:40
Speaker 1: really show out. You know, he wants to be the
11:42
Speaker 1: honor student of the church. I guess he's sitting right
11:45
Speaker 1: in the front. He's seeing a passing the collection plate.
11:48
Speaker 1: He's got a huge bible that he carries around everywhere.
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Speaker 1: But no one, no one goes to his practice. There
11:57
Speaker 1: are other dentists around, or they are just a fraid
12:00
Speaker 1: of dentists. His profits after three months are something abominably low,
12:06
Speaker 1: like seventy five cents. And he goes to his pal
12:09
Speaker 1: Mallory and he's like, Hey, what the heck man and
12:13
Speaker 1: Matt we're paraphrasing. Mallory says, Oh, you know, people are
12:16
Speaker 1: afraid of dentists. If they find when they trust, they
12:19
Speaker 1: stick with him and the town's long established dentists, the
12:23
Speaker 1: cornered the market. And that's part of what we're talking about,
12:25
Speaker 1: the stuff they don't want you to know episode because
12:29
Speaker 1: it can be an inherently uncomfortable proposition to trust people
12:33
Speaker 1: have for dentists they know can be pretty powerful. Yeah,
12:36
Speaker 1: that's true. I mean, even though like most of the
12:38
Speaker 1: work is done by hygienis that kind of rotate in
12:41
Speaker 1: and out. I mean, I guess some have like a
12:42
Speaker 1: smaller staff, but that matters, that final little inspection, you know,
12:46
Speaker 1: from the dentist there, like, you know, the main procedure
12:48
Speaker 1: they kind of give their sign off on, even if
12:50
Speaker 1: they're not the actual ones digging around in your mouth
12:52
Speaker 1: the whole time. Um, that relationship matters. And I think
12:55
Speaker 1: that's something that Parker really understood that they He needed
13:00
Speaker 1: to find a way to kind of take the fear
13:03
Speaker 1: out of dentistry, and he he did a thing that
13:07
Speaker 1: was probably the most bizarre and extreme version of that
13:12
Speaker 1: proposition that I could imagine. And by the way, I
13:15
Speaker 1: want to give huge thanks and credit to the Santa
13:18
Speaker 1: Cruz Sentinel author ross Eric Gibson Um for a very
13:22
Speaker 1: very cool article in the paper called Painless Parker and
13:24
Speaker 1: the Showmanship of dentistry. And that showmanship evolved, but it
13:28
Speaker 1: began with something quite simple. The idea of soliciting patients
13:40
Speaker 1: at the time was considered unethical. It's real catch twenty two.
13:44
Speaker 1: It's really interesting, right, I've got no patience, No one
13:47
Speaker 1: knows about me. My competition is is is cornered the market,
13:51
Speaker 1: and yet it's unethical for me to solicit or to
13:54
Speaker 1: advertise for my practice. But he decided, you know what,
13:57
Speaker 1: screw it. I'm in the rock and a hard place,
13:59
Speaker 1: like you said, and I am going to put myself
14:02
Speaker 1: out there, and he dubbed himself. He gave himself a
14:05
Speaker 1: moniker that he thought would really sell his practice, and
14:09
Speaker 1: that was the name Painless Parker. Because at the time
14:13
Speaker 1: these offices or these practices were called dental parlors. They
14:19
Speaker 1: were again mostly staffed by unlicensed dentists, and they were
14:26
Speaker 1: pretty unsanitary. There wasn't any standard of sanitation or sterilization yet,
14:32
Speaker 1: and this stuff was painful. They didn't have his water
14:35
Speaker 1: down cocaine solution. I don't imagine um. So he figured
14:39
Speaker 1: that Painless Moniker was really going to get people in
14:41
Speaker 1: the door. And he claimed that he could extract a
14:47
Speaker 1: tooth for fifty cents and it would be painless, and
14:51
Speaker 1: then if it wasn't, he would pay the patient five dollars,
14:55
Speaker 1: five dollars that he admittedly did not have. So yeah,
14:59
Speaker 1: he also, we should point out, paid for that sign,
15:03
Speaker 1: that Painless Parker sign in dentures. He didn't have the
15:07
Speaker 1: money to pay the signmakers, so he gave the signmaker
15:09
Speaker 1: a new set of dentures. And to be honest with you,
15:14
Speaker 1: this cocaine solution hydro kane didn't always work. Sometimes sometimes
15:21
Speaker 1: Parker would just say like, hey, do you like whiskey,
15:24
Speaker 1: and then give them a glass of whiskey. Either way,
15:28
Speaker 1: the narcotic did tend to work, and soon he was
15:32
Speaker 1: making hand over fist money as a traveling dentist. And
15:37
Speaker 1: he would he would particularly love to borrow a nearby
15:42
Speaker 1: rocking chair for his patients so he could lean them
15:44
Speaker 1: back and work on them. And then he started becoming
15:48
Speaker 1: a He started becoming a character. You know. He knew
15:52
Speaker 1: that he had to be memorable in the public eye.
15:55
Speaker 1: He had to somehow succeed against the intense this people
16:00
Speaker 1: had a dentist. So he went big. He got a
16:03
Speaker 1: white coat and a top hat, and then he would
16:06
Speaker 1: put planted. He would gather an audience right by a wagon,
16:10
Speaker 1: just like you would imagine a medicine show, and then
16:13
Speaker 1: he would put plants in the audience. I mean people
16:16
Speaker 1: pretending they didn't know him, not like a good elephant
16:19
Speaker 1: or or something or something. You know what it makes
16:22
Speaker 1: me think of. It makes me think of the the regular,
16:26
Speaker 1: the real life incarnation of the Wizard of Oz and
16:28
Speaker 1: the Wizard of Oz movie. What was his name, like
16:30
Speaker 1: Dr Mysterio or something like that medicine show. Yeah, it was, Yeah,
16:35
Speaker 1: but they had like he had like a big wagon
16:38
Speaker 1: with his logo painted on the side and would pedal
16:40
Speaker 1: these you know, tonics or whatever like mystical cures. And
16:44
Speaker 1: you know, they called him snake oil salesman because they
16:46
Speaker 1: were rooted in hucksterism, and it was, you know, there
16:49
Speaker 1: was no truth to any of the remedies. I mean,
16:51
Speaker 1: he was offering a service that was real, and I
16:55
Speaker 1: mean and he was offering a narcotic that would hopefully
17:01
Speaker 1: help numb the pain, because let's just remember cocaine is
17:05
Speaker 1: a numbing agent, or can be a numbing agent, and
17:08
Speaker 1: that was how it was used. But apparently also like
17:11
Speaker 1: this it comes a little later, but he uh, he
17:13
Speaker 1: would sometimes not even fully inject the tooth. He would
17:16
Speaker 1: just sort of squirt it on there on the cavity. Um.
17:19
Speaker 1: I think probably because he was trying to conserve his supply.
17:23
Speaker 1: I'm just guessing there, but yeah, it's true. He was
17:26
Speaker 1: definitely like on the street corner with his top hat
17:29
Speaker 1: kind of like making a big song and dance out
17:31
Speaker 1: of this whole thing, and it was yeah, yeah, yeah,
17:34
Speaker 1: let me go back to the plant thing because it's
17:36
Speaker 1: very important. First, it's it's unethical. We can agree. But
17:40
Speaker 1: he here's what he did with the patient or his
17:43
Speaker 1: fake patient, his test any patient. They would pretend to
17:48
Speaker 1: pull out a mohler and then show the audience, Hey,
17:52
Speaker 1: I've been hiding this tooth. This this extraction from painless
17:57
Speaker 1: Parker was a breeze and in a brass band would start.
18:02
Speaker 1: There would be people dancing and cortortionists, and then this
18:05
Speaker 1: guy would be you know, step right up, step right up,
18:08
Speaker 1: and this podka, uh fifty cents extraction five dollars if
18:11
Speaker 1: you feel that out to pain. And then while he
18:15
Speaker 1: was pulling the tooth out, Uh, this this is so crazy,
18:19
Speaker 1: he would he would signal the band to reach a crescendo,
18:23
Speaker 1: and so as this person was screaming, if they were screaming, like,
18:27
Speaker 1: oh god, you said it wouldn't hurt be you, son
18:30
Speaker 1: of an. It's like brass bands are loud. Um uh
18:39
Speaker 1: definitely cold John out of screen. I do wonder that
18:41
Speaker 1: how did he get away without having to like pay
18:43
Speaker 1: out five bucks every time that he had to stamp
18:45
Speaker 1: his foot for the brass band, presumably because someone was like,
18:48
Speaker 1: you know, screaming and agony. I wondered about that to Nuel,
18:52
Speaker 1: because as we'll find, he did make some enemies, he
18:56
Speaker 1: did get away unscathed here. Uh that answer, I don't know.
19:03
Speaker 1: It's tough, it gets. I wonder that was an early
19:06
Speaker 1: I wonder if that was an early part of his gimmick.
19:08
Speaker 1: And then when he brought in the brass band and
19:10
Speaker 1: the contortion is maybe he abandoned that part because he
19:12
Speaker 1: had enough bells and whistles to bring people without the
19:15
Speaker 1: money back here. Yeah, it must be because he's got
19:19
Speaker 1: so much overhead now he is. And again this is
19:21
Speaker 1: the time when he really started kind of like being
19:23
Speaker 1: a little bit cheap. When it came to doling out
19:26
Speaker 1: that sweet sweet, you know, tooth juice, he would occasionally
19:30
Speaker 1: only scored it on the tooth, or he wouldn't inject
19:33
Speaker 1: it at all, or like you said, or just like
19:35
Speaker 1: give him a little bit of whiskey, or squired it
19:37
Speaker 1: in the cavity. And even when he injected it, like
19:39
Speaker 1: you said, sometimes didn't work. But still, against all odds,
19:44
Speaker 1: that brass band man that did it, that was more
19:47
Speaker 1: of a helpful distraction I think than the pain medication even.
19:52
Speaker 1: I think the whole circus of it all gave people
19:55
Speaker 1: something to focus on outside of the nasty b in
20:00
Speaker 1: this of going to the dentist. And let's not forget
20:02
Speaker 1: too people that are at the point this is actually
20:05
Speaker 1: actually probably also a good um potential answer for the
20:08
Speaker 1: five dollar back guarantee. People that are getting to this
20:11
Speaker 1: point where they're going and seeking out a dentist are
20:14
Speaker 1: already in horrible pain, right, I mean, this would have
20:17
Speaker 1: been a time where they would have let it go
20:19
Speaker 1: to the point where they're just like dying. We've had
20:22
Speaker 1: too problems in the past, both of us, I believe in,
20:25
Speaker 1: and when it's bad, you'll do anything, you know, you'll
20:28
Speaker 1: do anything to get it to get it taken care of. Yeah,
20:31
Speaker 1: that's a really good point. And you know, just for context,
20:35
Speaker 1: at this time in history, the vast majority of people
20:39
Speaker 1: aren't really going in for checkups. Right, Like you said,
20:43
Speaker 1: no preventive preventative dentistry. But here's what here's what Parker
20:48
Speaker 1: has done. Now he's he's made his profession a spectacle
20:55
Speaker 1: and now people are responding to a social event that
20:59
Speaker 1: they head together. Part of the fear and the pain
21:03
Speaker 1: for people when they visit the dentist is it's you
21:06
Speaker 1: and one other person in this room, right, But now
21:10
Speaker 1: you're seeing people say, look he pulled my tooth out
21:13
Speaker 1: and it's fine, and you don't know their line and
21:15
Speaker 1: there's a band and it's awesome and people are all cheering. Oh,
21:19
Speaker 1: and you get this really cool if I may max
21:22
Speaker 1: fanfare whenever it's the tooth is successfully extracted, like like
21:28
Speaker 1: like like okay, it's like it's like we won the
21:30
Speaker 1: level of Zelda, you know, I mean, you're like, it's
21:32
Speaker 1: it's it's this this whole queue, everyone's like the tensions
21:35
Speaker 1: building and then dada and then Zelda. Soundtrack is based
21:40
Speaker 1: on Parker's band. It's a huge family's historical fact. But
21:47
Speaker 1: this wasn't this didn't last he had made this, you know, honestly,
21:52
Speaker 1: he had to some in the dental profession as it
21:55
Speaker 1: was starting to become more I mean, it wasn't. Let look,
21:58
Speaker 1: he went to this, you aniversity that was very much
22:02
Speaker 1: a serious dental university, Temple what what was then what
22:05
Speaker 1: is now Temple Um in Philadelphia, So you know, dentistry
22:09
Speaker 1: was beginning to become a serious profession, and those who
22:14
Speaker 1: took it seriously really resented Parker. So you know, he
22:19
Speaker 1: was the subject of lawsuits, he was the subject of
22:22
Speaker 1: a lot of negative talk in the press even and
22:26
Speaker 1: he eventually decided, you know what, maybe this is a
22:29
Speaker 1: little too much for me. So he went to Canada,
22:32
Speaker 1: the West coast of Canada, and tried to turn this
22:34
Speaker 1: whole thing around and become one of those uh, you know,
22:38
Speaker 1: legitimate dentists that hated him so much in Victoria, and
22:42
Speaker 1: he set up shop there with a regular old dental practice,
22:45
Speaker 1: and then he got in trouble because he did not
22:48
Speaker 1: have a local license. So it didn't matter if you
22:52
Speaker 1: graduated from this prestigious university. He needed local accreditation. And
22:57
Speaker 1: so he has a brief adventure that I would love
23:00
Speaker 1: to read as a comic book graphic novel spinoff. For
23:05
Speaker 1: part of eight into eight. Parker lives in a place
23:10
Speaker 1: called Sitka, Alaska. He is the state's loan dentist, the
23:15
Speaker 1: dentist of the Frozen Frontier. I can see it now,
23:18
Speaker 1: you know, I can feel some epic music there. His
23:22
Speaker 1: parents and sister. Meanwhile, they moved to Brooklyn, and in
23:25
Speaker 1: May of eight he goes and visits them, and he's
23:31
Speaker 1: still he's still very budget conscious, right, So he's like,
23:36
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can afford someone to play
23:40
Speaker 1: the horn for me for my act, So maybe I
23:42
Speaker 1: can learn to play the cornet myself. But it doesn't
23:46
Speaker 1: work because he needs to focus on being a dentist.
23:49
Speaker 1: I totally. And he also apparently has no inherent musical
23:52
Speaker 1: talent whatsoever. Um and you know is catterwalling away on
23:57
Speaker 1: this cornet and a neighbor woman who's practicing the piano
24:01
Speaker 1: bangs on the door and says, who's making all that racket?
24:04
Speaker 1: And a reply comes from within. This is from a
24:07
Speaker 1: Santa Cruz Sentinel article as well. A reply comes from within,
24:10
Speaker 1: Oh that's my brother, painless Parker. And wouldn't you know it,
24:14
Speaker 1: Parker and the complaining pianists eventually get married. It was
24:19
Speaker 1: that's what they call him, meat cute right there. That's
24:21
Speaker 1: a meat cute. That is, he opens an office in Brooklyn,
24:26
Speaker 1: but he's still struggling to just to make rent, much
24:30
Speaker 1: less make a profit or save some money. The guy
24:33
Speaker 1: has collect his rent is a guy named William Bibe
24:36
Speaker 1: or b B who said, quote, look, Parker, you're being
24:40
Speaker 1: a dope. There are lots of doctor Parker's. He was
24:43
Speaker 1: called himself Dr. E. R. Parker at this time, but
24:46
Speaker 1: there's only one painless Parker and his. This guy tells him,
24:50
Speaker 1: you know, if you go back to do it in
24:52
Speaker 1: your circus stuff, you'll be a millionaire. And a million
24:56
Speaker 1: dollars was a lot more money back then as well,
24:59
Speaker 1: no joke. And this guy Bebee Beebe, that's got I
25:02
Speaker 1: don't know, let's let's standardize Bbie. What do you think ben?
25:06
Speaker 1: I like calling him the Bebe. Let's call the bebes
25:09
Speaker 1: so the bebes Um, he's got a name for it.
25:12
Speaker 1: He turns out used to be a manager for the P. T.
25:15
Speaker 1: Barnum Circus or Barnum, you know, you know, the biggest,
25:18
Speaker 1: the greatest show on Earth and all that. And uh
25:20
Speaker 1: he knew this exactly the kind of background that that
25:24
Speaker 1: Parker came from. And he was like, what are you doing? Man?
25:27
Speaker 1: You were a sensation. I know it was. I mean,
25:30
Speaker 1: Barnum was always a little scandalous when he'd come to town,
25:32
Speaker 1: and the Beebes saw that kind of spark in parker
25:36
Speaker 1: Um and he said, you know, what are you doing? Man?
25:38
Speaker 1: You gotta go back to being the greatest dental showman
25:41
Speaker 1: you know around and he was trying Parker was trying
25:47
Speaker 1: to you know, turn his ways around. I guess um,
25:51
Speaker 1: I don't know that he had shame about it, but
25:52
Speaker 1: it does seem like from his trajectory bend, especially that
25:55
Speaker 1: weird sojourn to Alaska, like he was struggling with it
25:59
Speaker 1: a little bit right with his his own sense of self,
26:03
Speaker 1: Like what am I? You know, he had a identity
26:06
Speaker 1: crisis or something. He's like, am I just one of
26:08
Speaker 1: the rabble? You know? Do I just want to be
26:10
Speaker 1: one of the you know, the the dental herd, or
26:13
Speaker 1: do I want to like be something greater? And he
26:16
Speaker 1: sort of lost sight of who he was for a while,
26:18
Speaker 1: and now this guy is helping him find that again. Yeah,
26:23
Speaker 1: and so he gets pretty, he gets it, gets weird.
26:27
Speaker 1: He's back to he's back to being this showman. Like
26:30
Speaker 1: you said, he's got his this guy's outfit on again.
26:33
Speaker 1: Picture the you know, the circus ring master and the
26:37
Speaker 1: tall hat, the long tails and uh, you know, the
26:41
Speaker 1: somewhat grizzly edition of a necklace made out of teeth,
26:45
Speaker 1: which was uh somehow not creepy to a lot of people. Uh.
26:50
Speaker 1: And then they he and William, the Bebes made a
26:55
Speaker 1: genuine circus. They had acrobats, they had jugglers. Parker even
27:00
Speaker 1: rode atop an elephant a time or two. And this
27:04
Speaker 1: this change the game for his office. All of a sudden,
27:07
Speaker 1: waves of people are coming in. He's booked to the gills.
27:11
Speaker 1: He has to turn people away. We've got no room
27:13
Speaker 1: for more clients. He ends up renting. He goes big,
27:17
Speaker 1: immediately renting six more offices. He hires other no offense
27:22
Speaker 1: Parker slightly more legit dentists to run these offices, and
27:28
Speaker 1: he pays them more than they would make working somewhere else.
27:32
Speaker 1: But they still don't like him. It feels bad. They
27:35
Speaker 1: feel like the money is is somehow dirty. Because of
27:38
Speaker 1: the the spectacle Parker is associated with, people see him
27:42
Speaker 1: more as an entertainer in some circles or than a dentist.
27:46
Speaker 1: And other dentists, you know, other dentists. It's no secret
27:50
Speaker 1: they seem to look down upon him pretty severely. Yeah,
27:54
Speaker 1: and and speaking of the Bebe, I just want to
27:57
Speaker 1: point out this wonderful article that we started at the
27:59
Speaker 1: top of the show from the BBC a k a.
28:02
Speaker 1: The b Painless Parker, part dentist, part showman, all American,
28:05
Speaker 1: and you can see a wonderful image of that tooth
28:09
Speaker 1: necklace and it is absolutely uh maccab And this article
28:14
Speaker 1: is James Bartlett kind of talking through the legacy of
28:17
Speaker 1: Painless Parker, and it's an excellent read. But he basically
28:20
Speaker 1: just ups the anti on the smaller kind of medicine
28:24
Speaker 1: show that he was doing before. I get he must
28:27
Speaker 1: have gotten some investment. I mean, I think he had
28:29
Speaker 1: had some success up to this point, so maybe he
28:32
Speaker 1: had some money squirrelled away. But um, it seems like
28:34
Speaker 1: he really did take it up to the next level,
28:36
Speaker 1: like you said, adding acrobats and magicians even and uh
28:39
Speaker 1: and live animals. I mean, this really was like a
28:42
Speaker 1: traveling circus and it made a ton of money, an
28:47
Speaker 1: absolute mint uh and and really paved the way for
28:51
Speaker 1: what would ultimately become a dental empire for Painless Parker.
28:57
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, empire is not a hyperball phrase to use there,
29:01
Speaker 1: because he was the first person to do this successfully,
29:06
Speaker 1: but he wasn't the only one. There were other people
29:09
Speaker 1: who would follow in his path. They would try to,
29:13
Speaker 1: you know, they would try to have a little bit
29:15
Speaker 1: of theater and spectacle to get people into their doors.
29:21
Speaker 1: But because he was the first, he was also the
29:24
Speaker 1: most famous, and he didn't get a lot of This
29:28
Speaker 1: did not make him the bell of the dental community ball,
29:32
Speaker 1: but this did bring him a lot of money. And
29:37
Speaker 1: as Michael Pollock points out righting for The New York Times,
29:42
Speaker 1: he had the he he had all these kind of corny,
29:46
Speaker 1: highly illiteratetive phrases, these slogans that people really love proclaimed
29:52
Speaker 1: by popular pressing pulpit paying this part of his positively
29:56
Speaker 1: perfect I've noticed how he had pulpit thrown in there.
30:00
Speaker 1: I wonder if that was a reference back to his old,
30:02
Speaker 1: his old Bible thumping days. It makes it sound like
30:04
Speaker 1: there's a preacher who uh is everybody comes in on there,
30:09
Speaker 1: you know, in church and some Sunday and this guy
30:11
Speaker 1: stops for a second and says like, today's sermon is
30:14
Speaker 1: brought to you by painless Parker exactly. Oh and dude,
30:18
Speaker 1: I mean this building. It really is in the New
30:21
Speaker 1: York Times article you mentioned Ben this building. It's it's
30:24
Speaker 1: a huge building by the way um in in Brooklyn.
30:27
Speaker 1: And there is an image on the article courtesy of
30:30
Speaker 1: the Museum of the City of New York. That shows
30:34
Speaker 1: the slogans that he just had all over the building,
30:37
Speaker 1: like covering every flat kind of like paintable surface, and
30:41
Speaker 1: at the top it says, I am positively it and
30:44
Speaker 1: the it is like three stories tall in painless dentistry.
30:49
Speaker 1: And apparently he would I mean his showmanship when it
30:53
Speaker 1: came to like advertising for his practice. Really there was
30:56
Speaker 1: no um no and nothing you wouldn't do. There is
31:00
Speaker 1: no end to it. He you know, what what is it?
31:02
Speaker 1: Fly men or spiderman flies, human flies. They're kind of
31:06
Speaker 1: an old school thing. The dudes that would like kind
31:08
Speaker 1: of scale tall buildings in New York City or or
31:11
Speaker 1: you know, they're big city skyscrapers. And he would have
31:13
Speaker 1: those dudes like hire them out and have them scale
31:16
Speaker 1: his building, and particularly scale that it um which is
31:20
Speaker 1: the highest point of the building. It literally goes to
31:22
Speaker 1: the very very very tippy top. So he knew how
31:25
Speaker 1: to draw a crowd, that's for sure. There would yeah,
31:29
Speaker 1: it would be tight rope walkers that would have that
31:32
Speaker 1: would be you know, doing the typrope back, but they'd
31:35
Speaker 1: also be holding a sign like I'm going to payless
31:38
Speaker 1: barkers and this this is brilliant marketing. So customers also
31:44
Speaker 1: eventually fill up his new expanded office, that huge building.
31:50
Speaker 1: And so he gets a horse drawn kind of flatbed
31:53
Speaker 1: with a dentist chair for his traveling shows, and he
31:57
Speaker 1: keeps this bucket of teeth close at hands so he
32:00
Speaker 1: can show it to people, probably while he's still rocking
32:02
Speaker 1: that necklace. And over time we have to point out
32:07
Speaker 1: he deserves this to be pointed out. Over time, he
32:11
Speaker 1: has become a competent dentist, you know what I mean.
32:15
Speaker 1: He was rushing there in the beginning, and it's not
32:18
Speaker 1: that's true, but he's become a competent dentist. And unfortunately
32:22
Speaker 1: his marketing and his pr has made people in the
32:27
Speaker 1: dentistry community and other communities always dismiss him as a
32:32
Speaker 1: flam and flam guy, a con man. But he is
32:35
Speaker 1: at this point a dentist who would be considered legit
32:38
Speaker 1: in his time. And he's also not even practically not
32:42
Speaker 1: even the one that's doing most of the work. He's
32:44
Speaker 1: got like a team now working under him. He's ten. Yeah,
32:48
Speaker 1: he's a brand name, exactly like a fifteen licensed dentists,
32:53
Speaker 1: many of whom you know. According to various accounts that
32:56
Speaker 1: we've read very much resented working for him because he
32:59
Speaker 1: represents sentered this thing that we've been talking about the
33:01
Speaker 1: whole time, this kind of bastardization of the noble profession
33:05
Speaker 1: of tooth plumbing. Right, But there there they were because
33:09
Speaker 1: he paid well and he was kind of the biggest
33:11
Speaker 1: game in town. So he essentially started in the Santa
33:14
Speaker 1: Cruz Sentinel article refers to it as assembly line dentistry.
33:18
Speaker 1: So he really does have like a system. They even
33:20
Speaker 1: had these like pulleys with like clothes lines where they'd
33:23
Speaker 1: send the receipts to the cashier, you know, like zip
33:26
Speaker 1: line it over to him. And by the early nineteen hundreds,
33:29
Speaker 1: by undred particular, he had five branches throughout New York
33:35
Speaker 1: City and also in upstate New York, in Albany and
33:39
Speaker 1: in Troy, and all told, was making five grand a day.
33:43
Speaker 1: This deserves an inflation calculators. Uh yeah, that's some tuban
33:55
Speaker 1: throat singing lovers studied Max. Uh. Here's the result, folks,
33:59
Speaker 1: five thou and dollars in nineteen hundred would be worth
34:02
Speaker 1: one sixty thousand, two hundred thirty five dollars and twelve
34:06
Speaker 1: cents today. That is a ton of money to be
34:10
Speaker 1: making every single day. Uh. This this goes on for
34:15
Speaker 1: a while and it's you know, it's successful, and the
34:19
Speaker 1: Beabs by the way is still is still very much
34:22
Speaker 1: in the mix until nineteen o four he passes away,
34:27
Speaker 1: and then a few weeks later Parker himself contracts typhoid.
34:32
Speaker 1: And at this point we have to ask ourselves, and
34:35
Speaker 1: this is purely speculation, but we have to ask ourselves
34:39
Speaker 1: whether Parker felt he had sacrificed financial success for professional reputation,
34:47
Speaker 1: because you can get a sense of how severely people
34:50
Speaker 1: dislike him like as as Pollock points out, there's a
34:54
Speaker 1: nineteen article from Hampton's magazine that describes his the Painless
35:00
Speaker 1: Parker Building. Lastly, at the junction of Flatbush Avenue and
35:05
Speaker 1: Pacific Street is a gigantic brownstone building the fronts Brooklyn's
35:09
Speaker 1: busiest square. This building, emblazoned with blue signs, is a
35:13
Speaker 1: monument to the colossal and blatant self puffery of the
35:16
Speaker 1: most notorious of all the swindling tooth tinkers. It is
35:20
Speaker 1: the original headquarters of the most conceited Charlatan that dental
35:24
Speaker 1: quackery has ever known, The Citadel of painless Parker, the
35:29
Speaker 1: drum cord dentist, The drum cords dentist. Wow, harsh, bro harsh.
35:35
Speaker 1: And this is so this is published five years after
35:39
Speaker 1: he's sold his stake in the business, high tailed it
35:42
Speaker 1: to l A with his family to retire and get
35:46
Speaker 1: this the ripe old age of thirty five. You lucky,
35:49
Speaker 1: so ago l I mean, I guess you know, in
35:51
Speaker 1: the same way that inflation calculators work. That sort of
35:54
Speaker 1: works for age two five in nineteen ten would have
35:57
Speaker 1: been more like probably fifty in terms of life expected
36:01
Speaker 1: seat today maybe not, I don't know, but it is funny.
36:04
Speaker 1: He definitely made a mint and was able to to,
36:08
Speaker 1: you know, take off to l A. But the showman's
36:12
Speaker 1: you know, you can take the man out of the show,
36:14
Speaker 1: but you can't take the show out of the man,
36:16
Speaker 1: can you, Ben, You can't do it. He got the
36:24
Speaker 1: itch and realized that there was a market to be
36:27
Speaker 1: cornered in on the West coast for circus dentistry. Yeah, yeah,
36:33
Speaker 1: this actually this kind of sounds fun. Uh. So you
36:36
Speaker 1: go to Santa Cruz and you you would see a
36:40
Speaker 1: parade in the morning, then a show, a series of
36:43
Speaker 1: shows in intent that was kind of a hybrid of
36:48
Speaker 1: circus acts, but then also featured Parker coming out and
36:52
Speaker 1: telling you how to have good dental hygiene and then saying,
36:57
Speaker 1: by the way, anybody got a sort tooth? Because I'm
37:01
Speaker 1: right here, we got the I got the bucket. You
37:03
Speaker 1: can see the necklace. This is what I do. Uh,
37:06
Speaker 1: it works again. He's onto something. He's got another empire started,
37:11
Speaker 1: or a franchise. At least he's got what five five
37:15
Speaker 1: different offices and five different towns. And Ben, you make
37:18
Speaker 1: a really good point. You know, he is giving lectures
37:20
Speaker 1: on dental hygiene, which is pretty forward thinking, despite you know,
37:24
Speaker 1: his reputation as being a charlatan. I mean, he did
37:27
Speaker 1: seemingly have a bit of a head start on this
37:30
Speaker 1: thing that we think of now is so important and
37:33
Speaker 1: honestly the most important part of dentistry. And Uh. In
37:36
Speaker 1: the BBC article that I mentioned, where you can see
37:38
Speaker 1: that fantastic image of the tooth necklace, there's an advertisement
37:43
Speaker 1: that says this fixed teeth stay fixed longer when kept
37:47
Speaker 1: clean with painless Parker tooth powder or paste, the product
37:51
Speaker 1: of fifty years experience. Wait a minute, but he is
37:55
Speaker 1: thirty five. I don't understand the product. Okay, so maybe
37:58
Speaker 1: there's just some Charlottean Are you going on the brought
38:00
Speaker 1: ut the fifty years experience? None better? Ask your druggist
38:03
Speaker 1: and Ben. You were just in Philly. You know you
38:05
Speaker 1: went to some museums, but I don't imagine you went
38:08
Speaker 1: to the Cornberg School of Dentistry museum, which sounds pretty cool.
38:12
Speaker 1: I love weird old medical tech, and I love I
38:15
Speaker 1: love old medical tech. I also love museums about very
38:18
Speaker 1: specific things. That's I don't know why, just like I
38:23
Speaker 1: love reference works about very specific things. This Philly has
38:27
Speaker 1: got some weird ones. They've got the Motor Museum, which
38:29
Speaker 1: I think is a lot of weird at taxidermy and
38:32
Speaker 1: like medical appliances. And there's a few other kind of
38:35
Speaker 1: very specific ones in Philly too. For some time I got,
38:38
Speaker 1: you know, I got lost in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
38:42
Speaker 1: It's just wonderful. It's Laborntine too, so you can find
38:46
Speaker 1: so many amazing things. But yes, I will put this
38:49
Speaker 1: on my list for what I returned to Philly. Also,
38:52
Speaker 1: Parker is taking better care of himself at this point
38:55
Speaker 1: in his life. He stops drinking, he stopped smoking, and
38:59
Speaker 1: he's focusing on this showmanship. Eventually he says, you know,
39:07
Speaker 1: I need to pay I need to be more mindful
39:10
Speaker 1: of bacteria, right, and contamination. So I'm not gonna do
39:14
Speaker 1: these sidewalk demonstrations anymore. And he starts screening educational films
39:21
Speaker 1: about dental hygiene in his office, and people are always
39:25
Speaker 1: invited to come in for a free check up. But
39:29
Speaker 1: like like we said before, man, he's made some enemies
39:33
Speaker 1: because we we mentioned, especially in you know, those earlier times,
39:37
Speaker 1: his dental extractions often were not painless, right, and there
39:42
Speaker 1: were people who felt they had been swindled, they felt
39:47
Speaker 1: they had been sold a bill of goods, and other
39:51
Speaker 1: dentists were aware that there were angry patients. The American
39:55
Speaker 1: Dental Association even called him a menace to the dignity
40:01
Speaker 1: of the profession. Yeah, because Parker really had this kind
40:04
Speaker 1: of checkered legacy. Or on the one hand, he was
40:07
Speaker 1: seen as the charlatan and this kind of snake oil salesman.
40:10
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, he definitely developed some techniques
40:13
Speaker 1: and some kind of forward thinking ways of looking at
40:16
Speaker 1: the dental hygiene right that that you know, kind of
40:19
Speaker 1: persists to this day. And also not to mention the
40:21
Speaker 1: idea of a precursor to novacaine that he kind of
40:24
Speaker 1: just invented, uh more or less. But the former dean
40:29
Speaker 1: of the Temple University, Maurice H. Kornberg School of Dentistry,
40:34
Speaker 1: Dr Ahmid Ishmael makes a really really good point that
40:37
Speaker 1: I think is one that is good to leave with today.
40:40
Speaker 1: Um that he quote serves as a warning to consumers
40:44
Speaker 1: even today. Scientific evidence must remain the foundation of clinical
40:49
Speaker 1: care in any health field, otherwise we will be victims
40:52
Speaker 1: to modern Charlottean's. So I think it's no accident that
40:56
Speaker 1: that museum we're talking about still has on display a
41:00
Speaker 1: bucket of teeth and that weird maccabre tooth necklace and
41:05
Speaker 1: keeps the memory of Painless Parker alive. And there are
41:08
Speaker 1: other aspects of this story, little facts here and there
41:12
Speaker 1: that give you even more of a sense of of
41:14
Speaker 1: Parker's life. He legally changed his first name to Painless,
41:18
Speaker 1: for example. His and his contributions are you know, undeniable,
41:25
Speaker 1: even though he could arguably be called a con artist
41:29
Speaker 1: at different times. Uh. I love the point that the
41:33
Speaker 1: dean makes there because it's it's an important one. And
41:37
Speaker 1: if you'd like to if you'd like to learn more
41:39
Speaker 1: about why this point is so important, I would recommend
41:43
Speaker 1: checking out our episode on Stuff they Don't Want You
41:45
Speaker 1: to Know, called Stuff they Don't Want You to Know
41:47
Speaker 1: goes to the Dentist. We found there's a lot of
41:51
Speaker 1: opportunity for bad actors when they have somebody in a
41:55
Speaker 1: vulnerable position like this with with the power and balance,
41:59
Speaker 1: because you know, the dentist knows what they are doing,
42:02
Speaker 1: but the patient doesn't really know what no what's going
42:06
Speaker 1: on in there totally. And the reason he changed his name,
42:09
Speaker 1: by the way, to Painless Parker was because of a
42:12
Speaker 1: new law that came about in California preventing dentist from
42:17
Speaker 1: practicing under anything but their real name, because they believed
42:21
Speaker 1: that Painless Parker was false advertising, not only because it
42:26
Speaker 1: was a pseudonym, because it promised painless um, you know,
42:30
Speaker 1: dental procedures. H So that's why he changed his name.
42:33
Speaker 1: But he was so very much part of the zeitgeist
42:37
Speaker 1: at the time that just a couple of years before
42:40
Speaker 1: he died in nineteen eight, Bob Hope played a character
42:44
Speaker 1: in a movie called Pale Face with Jane Mansfield named
42:49
Speaker 1: Peter painless Potter who is a kind of a Huxtery
42:53
Speaker 1: snake oil dentist um and Parker, you know, lived to
42:57
Speaker 1: see the picture and loved it apparently, and also it
43:00
Speaker 1: gave him a little more publicity, which you can't You
43:03
Speaker 1: can't buy publicity like that. No such thing as bad publicity.
43:06
Speaker 1: I bet Parker believed, he probably did. He probably did,
43:09
Speaker 1: but that's not a statement everybody agrees with. We also
43:14
Speaker 1: want to give a shout out to Michael D. Tola,
43:18
Speaker 1: who was himself a dentist, who helpefully points out that
43:22
Speaker 1: Parker was at one point in his career quote more
43:26
Speaker 1: famous than the president. M h, it's pretty crazy. Yeah,
43:30
Speaker 1: it's you know, at least he didn't say it. He
43:33
Speaker 1: probably said it and then had somebody else he put
43:36
Speaker 1: a plant in the crowd. But did we mention that
43:39
Speaker 1: the dentists have a particularly unusually high rate of suicide,
43:44
Speaker 1: particularly in the medical community. There's a there's a couple
43:47
Speaker 1: of stats from success dot ader dot org. Apparently male
43:50
Speaker 1: dentists have the highest rate of suicide within the medical
43:54
Speaker 1: community at eight point two percent, and then female dentists
43:57
Speaker 1: of the fourth highest at five point to a doctor's
44:00
Speaker 1: seven point eight seven, pharmacists seven point one nine, nurses
44:02
Speaker 1: six point five six, But yeah, eight point two percent
44:06
Speaker 1: for for dentists. It's apparently a thing. And not to
44:09
Speaker 1: end on a down note, which we won't, but um,
44:11
Speaker 1: there's a really and if you want to explore this
44:13
Speaker 1: trend in any more depth, there's a great article on
44:17
Speaker 1: Vice our dentists really more prone to suicide by Elizabeth
44:20
Speaker 1: Brown and they quote a dentist saying when you're in
44:23
Speaker 1: a career where nobody wants to see you, and you're
44:25
Speaker 1: the last place they want to come back to, and
44:27
Speaker 1: it's depressing. Um, which is something that painless Parker I
44:30
Speaker 1: think was trying to, you know, turn on its head
44:32
Speaker 1: a bit right. Yeah, and this is a this is
44:35
Speaker 1: a statistic. Uh, you'll see bandied around in various forms
44:39
Speaker 1: of The doctor you quote makes a good point about this.
44:43
Speaker 1: I didn't include it in stuff they don't want you
44:45
Speaker 1: to know as episode on dentistry because we didn't you
44:49
Speaker 1: want to focus on the tragedy of suicide. There is
44:53
Speaker 1: some sand to that research. However, let's send on some
44:57
Speaker 1: maybe some weird, slightly fun slash gross dental facts. Did
45:03
Speaker 1: you know that there are people getting tattoos on their
45:05
Speaker 1: caps and crowns, tooth tattoos. They can't do it yet. Okay, Yeah,
45:12
Speaker 1: that's okay, I guess that. That's so. I guess that
45:14
Speaker 1: sort of like, ah, maybe the equivalent of getting like
45:17
Speaker 1: a gold grill or like a diamond encrusted tooth or
45:19
Speaker 1: something like that of the vanity area of dentistry. Yeah,
45:23
Speaker 1: I guess so. I guess so. I've also seen this thing,
45:26
Speaker 1: or I've seen reports of this thing where people are
45:29
Speaker 1: getting their teeth like colored or decorated the way that
45:33
Speaker 1: you would fingernails, through some kind of some kind of process.
45:38
Speaker 1: It's not permanent, at least as far as I know.
45:41
Speaker 1: But here's a cool ice breaker you can throw out
45:44
Speaker 1: there next time you find yourself in the dentist's office. Uh.
45:47
Speaker 1: The average person, over the course of their life apparently
45:50
Speaker 1: spends thirty eight days total brushing their teeth. Well, hopefully
45:55
Speaker 1: all of us who have maybe let some of that
45:58
Speaker 1: dental upkeep fall by the wayside during COVID can look
46:02
Speaker 1: at that as a as an inspiration to change our ways. Ben,
46:06
Speaker 1: I want to end with one more fact, if you
46:08
Speaker 1: don't mind, Uh. The comical dental fact is that cotton
46:12
Speaker 1: candy was invented by a dentist. There the literal like
46:16
Speaker 1: bane of of dentistry was invented by a dentist. This
46:20
Speaker 1: dude named Dr William James Morrison, who uh mental flaws
46:24
Speaker 1: described as being a man at odds with himself because
46:28
Speaker 1: not only was he in the dental profession, he also
46:30
Speaker 1: had a sweet tooth and was sort of a fair
46:32
Speaker 1: uh you know, part time confectioner. Um. And while you know,
46:36
Speaker 1: what you would call candy floss has been used for
46:40
Speaker 1: generations in various cultures. Um, what we would think of
46:44
Speaker 1: as the type of machine spun sugar cotton candy was
46:49
Speaker 1: in fact debut at the nineteen four World's Fair by
46:52
Speaker 1: a dentist. Thanks so much for tuning in, folks, Hope
46:56
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this one thanks to our super producers Casey
46:59
Speaker 1: Pegram and the one and only Max Williams. Max, what's
47:03
Speaker 1: your We forgot to ask you at the top, what's
47:05
Speaker 1: your what's your take on dentist deal? Are you a
47:08
Speaker 1: are you an ardent fan of dentistry? So I have
47:12
Speaker 1: a story in the past where I went a little
47:15
Speaker 1: too long without going the dentist Like I'm not gonna
47:18
Speaker 1: say how many years it was on Eric's Is that bad?
47:20
Speaker 1: But uh, no dentist, they're uh, they're fine people. I
47:24
Speaker 1: don't like them, but they do an important job. Well,
47:27
Speaker 1: you you mean you don't like having to go to
47:29
Speaker 1: the dentist. You're not saying like when you find out
47:32
Speaker 1: a friend is a dentist, you're like, oh, forget it.
47:34
Speaker 1: This is oh no, no, no, I am saying that best.
47:40
Speaker 1: Thanks so much to Jonathan Strickland's a k a. The Wister,
47:43
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to Gabe Bluesier, research associate. Uh and
47:48
Speaker 1: thanks to all the dentists out there. You're doing good,
47:52
Speaker 1: profound uh and often thankless work. And you know, in addition,
47:56
Speaker 1: the people who get ignored often thanks to the dentistry
48:00
Speaker 1: assistance thanks to the hygenis. Thanks to everybody who makes
48:03
Speaker 1: good teeth possible, including including you, folks. Let's all remember
48:07
Speaker 1: to brush. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
48:16
Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
48:19
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.