The Dentist

My granddaughter had her first visit to the dentist this week. My son sent me a picture of her sitting in the chair holding on to her Margaret doll. She sat like a little lady while her teeth were cleaned. She told me that Margaret also had her teeth cleaned. In the picture, the dentist was wearing a surgical mask and blue surgical gloves. This is the standard of this generation. I showed my husband the picture. He said that he has vivid memories of his dentist when he was a child. He remembers the smell of cigar smoke. As he sat in the chair, the dentist smoked a cigar. The smoke blew into the patient's face. That is what they did in those days. There was no sterile standard. No gloves, no masks, no HIPAA and no Novocaine. When they drilled, you writhed in pain and when it got to be too much you raised your hand for the dentist to stop. Our hand was the Novocaine. My dentist liked to tell jokes. If you told him that your gums bled in the morning when you brushed your teeth after you woke up, he told you to get a night job. Medicine at its best.