Tag Archives: dentist

African American contract doctors in the military

May 28, 2020

Edward McSweegan Kingston, Rhode Island, United States   African American Soldiers in Cuba, 1898, Wikipedia In the spring of 1898, the United States rushed into a war with Spain but lacked adequate troops, training, weapons, transport, supplies, food, landing craft, and medical personnel. One deficit that could be corrected before the shooting started was the […]

Blood at Maidan – Kyiv, Ukraine 2014

January 27, 2020

Olena Kagui Rhode Island, United States   Photo by Olena Kagui, taken March 17th, 2014. Source There was no physical blood present when I stepped onto Maidan Square in Kyiv, Ukraine. Yet signs of it were everywhere. Bullet holes pierced the shields and helmets that memorialized the fallen. Flowers, the color of blood, sat inside […]

Dentistry by candlelight

January 6, 2020

Thanks to modern anesthesia a visit to the dentist is now a pretty painless affair. This was not the case until relatively recently, and certainly not so in the seventeenth century, when dental services were often rendered by itinerant barber-surgeons. In the painting by Leiden artist Gerrit Dou, the tooth puller is extracting a tooth […]

The promise of a perfect smile

April 25, 2019

Liz Jones Aberystwyth, Wales, UK   Enamel plaque advertising the dentist Templar Malins, featuring the Novocaine- based anaesthetic Sinedol. Cardiff, circa 1907. Teeth. 17-May – 16 Sept. 2018, Wellcome Collection, London, UK My gran would pull a miniature silver blade from its mother-of-pearl handle and slice the apple into six pieces to share between the […]

The last of the “just”

January 27, 2017

R. Steinberg Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States   Photography by Mauro Quercia   My dentist approached the chair to crown one of my favorite teeth. I am a retired orthopedic surgeon, and a fearful dental patient. I smiled sadly, and opened. When she removed the swab, I proposed a challenge. “Could you get through one day of […]

The trapped peasant

January 26, 2017

Alexandru Gh. Sonoc Sibiu, Romania   The Trapped Peasant, 1631Adriaen van der Venne (1589–1662) Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu, Romania A strange looking dentist (tall hat, long hair, goatee, sword, tall boots) is pulling a peasant’s tooth. Behind the peasant, a woman (traditionally considered as his wife, but more likely a prostitute) opens a purse hanging […]