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Elizabeth Fee, Theodore M. Brown, Jan Lazarus and Paul Theerman

Elizabeth Fee, Jan Lazarus, and Paul Theerman are with the History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. Theodore M. Brown is with the Departments of History and of Community and Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Elizabeth Fee, PhD, Building 38, Room 1E21, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894 (e-mail: elizabeth_fee@nlm. nih.gov).

	INTRODUCTION

 
FROM THE MIDDLE AGES through the early 19th century, tooth pulling was often performance art. Barber-surgeons cut hair, set bones, let blood, and pulled teeth. Toothache could be treated with leeches, blistering, cupping, and laxatives, as well as with prescriptions of lizard liver, green frogs, and a urine gargle.¹ Opium mixtures were popular painkillers.

When refined sugar became widely available in the 17th century, dental caries became common. For more desperate sufferers, itinerant tooth pullers set up shop in marketplaces and at fairs. The "dentist" and his assistants attracted a crowd by telling stories, singing and dancing, performing tricks, or . . . [Full Text]

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