Oh, Pioneers! by Jason R. Flores, RN, DDS

A salute to dentists who helped shape
medicine as we know and practice it.

Today, arriving at a dental office, completing the sign-in sheet and receiving nitrous for a comfortable dental experience seems routine, even mundane.

But what’s often overlooked are the past efforts that practitioners of dentistry have contributed to current American dental medicine. These three dentists helped shape American life and dentistry by advancing the profession of dental medicine and improving the public’s access to oral health care.

Dr. Horace Wells
Anesthesia
After attending a demonstration by traveling showman and lecturer Gardner Colton, Wells happened to watch a young man inhale nitrous oxide—which in those days was used recreationally in “laughing gas parties”—and run around the stage, accidentally injuring his leg. Wells, a Connecticut dental surgeon, noticed that the man appeared to be unaware of his injury, which led the doctor to experiment with nitrous gas at his dental practice.

Wells began demonstrating his anesthesia techniques, but had the misfortune of an ill-fated demonstration at Massachusetts General Hospital: As he prepared to administer nitrous gas for another surgeon to perform surgical amputation, the patient decided he didn’t want to go through with the surgery.

To continue the demonstration, Wells asked if anyone in the surgical theater’s audience was in need of a tooth extraction. A young man volunteered … but as the nitrous gas took effect, it was realized that the wrong surgical instruments were present for extracting a tooth. Surgical assistants hurried to get the correct equipment but the nitrous has begun to wear off. During the extraction, the patient cried out in pain, which doomed the demonstration [illustrated on opposite page]. Wells left in disgrace.^2,3,6,11,13

This was just the beginning of his misfortunes. In the years that followed, he faced professional ridicule, marital problems and drug addiction, until his eventual suicide. Wells didn’t live to see his accomplishments celebrated or how his contributions to anesthesia advanced the field of surgery.

His endeavors were debated but when it was discovered in November 1844 that his work with nitrous and its use in surgery predated other doctors’ documented nitrous use, he was honored as the “Father of Modern Anesthesia,” an honorific bestowed in 1864 by the American Dental Association and in 1870 by the American Medical Association. Wells has two monuments dedicated to his achievements—one in the Place des États-Unis, Paris, and the other in his hometown of Hartford, Connecticut.^2,3,6,11,13

S. Fuller, MD, a Hartford physician surgeon, stated on March 25, 1847: “Horace Wells, dentist, has for more than two years, had the reputation, in this city, of having made a discovery which enabled him, and others, to extract teeth without pain, by the use of exhilarating gas. ... There is no doubt in my mind that said Wells discovered and made the first practical application of this principle in surgical operations.”¹

Paul Revere
Prosthodontics, forensic odontology
Revere was a talented silversmith, well-known for his delicate and ornate silver pieces. As British rule was being forced over the verging American colonies, war loomed and the cost of silver increased, so the struggling father of six turned to dentistry as a way to stave off poverty.

In this time of economic downturn, Revere practiced dentistry as a way to make ends meet. After learning how to craft false teeth from ivory or bone, Revere paired his new creations with silver or gold metal backings and frameworks.

One of Revere’s dental patients was an American general and physician, Joseph Warren, who came to Revere to have a left incisor replaced with an ivory tooth on a gold wire framework—they later became good friends, as well.

On June 17, 1775, Warren was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill when British troops stormed the stronghold he was helping to defend. Warren was killed by a musket ball to the head and after the battle, the British left the corpses to rot on the battlefield. When Revere learned of this, he felt the need to find his friend’s body and give him a proper burial.

But when he arrived at Charleston he found it nearly impossible to determine one soldier’s identity from another’s because of the devastating wounds of close combat, the decomposition and missing flesh due to animal scavengers.

As Revere searched, he found one such body with an unrecognizable face ... except for a gold wire attached to a left incisor, which Revere recognized as his own dental work. This may be the first recorded instance of an American dentist using teeth as a means to identifying a dead body.^7,9,10

Dr. Edgar Parker
Marketing, “painless” dentistry, owning multiple practices
Parker’s dental practice in Brooklyn, New York, was failing. As a new graduate in 1898, he was under pressure from professional dental societies not to advertise his services—back then, it was thought that only frauds advertised dental services. (Also, his dental armamentarium scared the public, because it looked so similar to workman’s tools like hammers, screwdrivers and pliers.)

By chance, Parker met rent collector William Beebe, who had once worked for P.T. Barnum and understood how important advertising was to success. Beebe advised Parker to start advertising in the most ostentatious, over-the-top ways to draw in patients. The dentist began promoting himself as “Painless Parker”—a showy, but attention-grabbing moniker—but soon runs afoul of the local dental society, which accuses him of unethical and fraudulent business practices.

In 1914, the society passed a resolution to prohibit advertising under a pseudonym. Parker countered this by changing his legal name to Painless Parker. Along with his new circus-style dental promotions, he won over the public’s trust that dentistry can be a painless endeavor that drastically improves public oral health.

One of Parker’s marketing strategies was to charge a small fee for dental extractions but offer a sizeable reward to patients who felt pain during the procedure. In a time before injectable local anesthetics, Parker discovered that swishing a mix of whiskey and cocaine (along with the distractions of a brass band and circus activities) was enough to cover the quick extraction of an infected tooth.

He went from poor, struggling dentist to multimillionaire, with approximately 30 dental offices spread over seven states, employing nearly 70 dentists.^4,5,8,12

• Archer, W. H. (1944). Life and letters of Horace Wells, discoverer of anesthesia: chronologically arranged with an appendix. American College of Dentists.
Baker, D., Cazalaà, J. B., & Cousin, M. T. (2014). Aspects of the Development of Anesthesia in France. In The Wondrous Story of Anesthesia (pp. 355-370). Springer New York.
• Bigelow, H. J. (1876). A HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF MODERN ANAESTHESIA. The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 71(141), 164-184
• Christen, A. G., & Pronych, P. M. (1995). Painless Parker: A Dental Renegade’s Fight to Make Advertising” Ethical”. Dental Tobacco Cessation Consultants, Incorporated.
• Colangelo, G. A. (2009). Innovations to improve oral health care access. Dental Clinics of North America, 53(3), 591-608.
• Martinelli, P. T., Czelusta, A., & Peterson, S. (2008). Self-experimenters in medicine: heroes or fools? Part II. Anesthesia, surgery, therapeutics, vaccinations, and vitamin C. Clinics in dermatology, 26(6), 657-660.
• (n.d.). Retrieved June 09, 2016, from http://www.travelchannel.com/shows/mysteries-at-the-museum/video/paul-revere-s-unknown-careers
• (n.d.). Retrieved June 09, 2016, from http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31704287
• Schatzki, S. C. (2013). The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill. American Journal of Roentgenology, 200(6), 1409-1410.
• Schatzki SC. A versatile patriot. AJR 1991; 157:280
• Sneader, W. E. (2005). Drug Discovery (The History). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
• Squeaky Fromme, Hodag And More. (n.d.). Mysteries at the Museum. Season 4, episode 3. Retrieved June 10, 2016, from http://www.allreadable.com/eaba1tCC
• Wells, H. (1847). A history of the discovery of the application of nitrous oxide gas, ether and other vapors, to surgical operations.