On Molars and the Dreaded Mask.

I occasionally think of how dental practice has changed since I was a boy. I used to get toothache quite a lot back then, and if the application of clove oil failed to cure the condition I was simply taken to the dentist and the offending tooth was extracted. I never had a filling. None of my friends had fillings either because it seems that teeth were not afforded the respect they now attract. My mother was even persuaded by one dentist to have all her perfectly good teeth taken out and replaced with dentures because plastic teeth gave less trouble. She was in her early to mid thirties at the time.

What most intrigues me, however, is that all my extractions were performed under a general anaesthetic administered by a lone dentist without the assistance of a qualified anaesthetist or even a nurse. I’m not sure how standard that practice was because I remember conversations with other kids when the question was asked: ‘Did you have gas or cocaine?’ (Cocaine!?) But it was certainly true in my case.

And sometimes I wonder whether this commonly used procedure ever produced seriously deleterious side effects, which I assume is likely and the reason for not doing it any more. So how many people suffered life-changing conditions, and did anybody ever fail to wake up? I’ve never seen any statistics on that question, but I’d love to know whether any exist and, if so, what they reveal.

(I might add as a minor footnote that I was always taken to the nearest Woolworths store after an extraction and bought a small toy by way of recompense. I suppose it went some way to ameliorate the fear and the unpleasantness of having the taste of blood in my mouth for the rest of the day.)