by W. W. Jacobs
G. H. DERBY ("Phoenix," "Squibob")
TUSHMAKER'S TOOTHPULLER
Doctor Tushmaker was never regularly bred as a physician or surgeon,but he possessed naturally a strong mechanical genius and a fineappetite; and finding his teeth of great service in gratifying thelatter propensity, he concluded that he could do more good in theworld, and create more real happiness therein, by putting the teethof its inhabitants in good order than in any other way; so Tushmakerbecame a dentist. He was the man who first invented the method ofplacing small cog-wheels in the back teeth for the more perfectmastication of food, and he claimed to be the original discoverer ofthat method of filling cavities with a kind of putty which, becominghard directly, causes the tooth to ache so grievously that it has to bepulled, thereby giving the dentist two successive fees for the same job.
Tushmaker was one day seated in his office, in the city of Boston,Massachusetts, when a stout old fellow named Byles presented himself tohave a back tooth drawn. The dentist seated his patient in the chair oftorture, and, opening his mouth, discovered there an enormous tooth,on the right-hand side, about as large, as he afterward expressed it,"as a small Polyglot Bible."
"I shall have trouble with this tooth," thought Tushmaker, but heclapped on his heaviest forceps and pulled. It didn't come. Then hetried the turn-screw, exerting his utmost strength, but the toothwouldn't stir. "Go away from here," said Tushmaker to Byles, "andreturn in a week, and I'll draw that tooth for you or know the reasonwhy." Byles got up, clapped a handkerchief to his jaw, and putforth. Then the dentist went to work, and in three days he inventedan instrument which he was confident would pull anything. It was acombination of the lever, pulley, wheel and axle, inclined plane,wedge and screw. The castings were made, and the machine put up in theoffice, over an iron chair rendered perfectly stationary by iron rodsgoing down into the foundations of the granite building. In a weekold Byles returned; he was clamped into the iron chair, the forcepsconnected with the machine attached firmly to the tooth, and Tushmaker,stationing himself in the rear, took hold of a lever four feet inlength. He turned it slightly. Old Byles gave a groan and lifted hisright leg. Another turn, another groan, and up went the leg again.
"What do you raise your leg for?" asked the Doctor.
"I can't help it," said the patient.
"Well," rejoined Tushmaker, "that tooth is bound to come out now."
He turned the lever clear round with a sudden jerk, and snapped oldByles's head clean and clear from his shoulders, leaving a space offour inches between the severed parts!
They had a _post-mortem_ examination--the roots of the tooth were foundextending down the right side, through the right leg, and turning up intwo prongs under the sole of the right foot!
"No wonder," said Tushmaker, "he raised his right leg."
The jury thought so, too, but they found the roots much decayed; andfive surgeons swearing that mortification would have ensued in a fewmonths, Tushmaker was cleared on a verdict of "justifiable homicide."
He was a little shy of that instrument for some time afterward; but oneday an old lady, feeble and flaccid, came in to have a tooth drawn, andthinking it would come out very easy, Tushmaker concluded, just by wayof variety, to try the machine. He did so, and at the first turn drewthe old lady's skeleton completely and entirely from her body, leavingher a mass of quivering jelly in her chair! Tushmaker took her home ina pillow-case.
The woman lived seven years after that, and they called her the"India-Rubber Woman." She had suffered terribly with the rheumatism,but after this occurrence never had a pain in her bones. The dentistkept them in a glass case. After this, the machine was sold to thecontractor of the Boston Custom-House, and it was found that a childof three years of age could, by a single turn of the screw, raise astone weighing twenty-three tons. Smaller ones were made on the sameprinciple and sold to the keepers of hotels and restaurants. They wereused for boning turkeys. There is no moral to this story whatever,and it is possible that the circumstances may have become slightlyexaggerated. Of course, there can be no doubt of the truth of the mainincidents.
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Bob Ingersoll relates an anecdote of a Hebrew who went into arestaurant to get his dinner. The devil of temptation whispered in hisear, "Bacon." He knew if there was anything that made Jehovah realwhite mad, it was to see anybody eating bacon; but he thought, "MaybeHe is too busy watching sparrows and counting hairs to notice me," andso he took a slice. The weather was delightful when he went into therestaurant, but when he came out the sky was overcast, the lightningleaped from cloud to cloud, the earth trembled, and it was dark. Hewent back into the restaurant, trembling with fear, and, leaning overthe counter, said to the clerk, "My God, did you ever hear such a fussabout a little piece of bacon!"