Dr. Edgar Parker's Mad Dental Circus

For many of us, going to the dentist is a nightmare experience. And this despite anesthesia and other modern technologies. It is hard to imagine that there were times when tooth extraction became a popular show and people paid money for this spectacle. This is how Canadian dentist Edgar Parker, who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, made a living.

Edgar Randolph Parker was born in Tynemouth Creek, New Brunswick, Canada, in 1872. From early childhood, Edgar was distinguished by an active nature and a craving for entrepreneurship. Already at the age of 9, he bartered a chicken cage with a neighbor and was going to breed poultry. He did not become a farmer, but having matured, he took up traveling trade. He bought a small wagon and began to travel around the country, selling various small things.

But Edgar's father did not like the son's idea, as he wanted his offspring to do something more solid. Once he sold his son's carriage along with the goods and gave him a lecture on life prospects. Insulted by his father's arbitrariness, young Parker left home. He got a job as a sailor on his uncle's merchant ship and began to plow the seas and oceans.

But it didn't work out here either. During one of the voyages, Edgar was injured and ended up in a hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina, far from his native Canada. There he first saw the work of doctors and learned that they earn good money. Of all the specialties, he liked dentistry the most. He decided that it was much better to help people and get good money at the same time than to risk his life at sea.

At the age of 17, Edgar Parker entered the Dental College of New York. He gave all his savings for his studies, but they were not even enough for one semester. Therefore, the smart Canadian did not come up with anything better than starting a dental practice without receiving a diploma. It was forbidden by law, but the guy had no other choice. At first everything went like clockwork, but then in college they found out about Edgar's business and he was expelled.

Parker went to the other end of the United States, to Philadelphia, and there he nevertheless received the coveted diploma. It must be said that Edgar did not differ in diligence and, in order to get a document, he had to tearfully beg teachers and give bribes. But one way or another, the paper with confirmation of qualifications ended up in the hands of the guy. With her, he went to his native Canada to start a practice there.

But Parker was not a good specialist and could not compete with other doctors. Therefore, very soon he was left without clients and got into debt. Another would have despaired and abandoned a hopeless occupation, but not Edgar. He launched an advertising campaign that had never been seen in Canada or even in the beat-up US.

Dr. Parker ordered an advertising poster from a neighbor who owned a printing house and paid off with dentures. The poster promised a quick and absolutely painless extraction of teeth. If the client is not satisfied, Parker promised to return the money. Edgar did not worry about financial losses, and in fact he mastered the art of painlessly tearing even wisdom teeth.

Parker's secret was simple - before starting, he would give the patient a potion of his own making. It was hydrocaine, a solution of cocaine in water. While a person was high, a dentist could pull out a few problematic teeth without pain. What happened to the poor fellow later - Edgar was not interested, because he promised only the absence of pain during removal. But since most specialists vomited without anesthesia at all, the patients were satisfied with this.

Seeing that the business idea was successful, Parker decided to develop it. Sitting in one place was unprofitable and he organized a mobile dental clinic. He bought a wagon, as he once did in his youth, and went on a tour of Canada and the United States. Field practice turned out to be more profitable. Edgar will significantly improve his financial situation and even start a family.

After working this way for several years, Parker moved with his wife and children to New York. He had enough money, but, as always, he wanted more. Therefore, when a friend named William Beebe offered to organize a dental show, Edgar immediately agreed, and the unusual tour started.

Partners would drive to a city or town in Edgar's truck and invite the residents to the show. After gathering an audience and selling tickets, Parker gave a short lecture on the importance of oral hygiene, displaying colorful posters. Then a volunteer was called from the crowd, to whom the doctor promised to pull out a tooth painlessly. Of course, the patient was a dummy, and the cunning dentist removed the extracted tooth from the sleeve.

Seeing that the patient was smiling happily after an unpleasant procedure, the sufferers climbed onto the platform of the truck one by one. Each, having paid a certain amount, received a portion of a narcotic mixture and lost his diseased teeth. The operation did not always go smoothly, but a small orchestra drowned out the patient's cries. Money flowed into Parker's pocket like a river. He called himself "Painless Parker" and spared no expense in publicity.

Everything was fine until the authorities found out about the doctor's pseudonym. They decided that he was, to put it mildly, untrue. Edgar was urged to choose a simpler nickname or pay a large fine and surrender his license. But the enterprising dentist did not plan to change anything. He just changed his name and became Painless Parker on paper. And no one could forbid the doctor to be called by his own name.

Parker's practice irritated not only officials. His business grew into a network of mobile offices, and the doctor began to enrage his colleagues in the dental shop. They filed a lawsuit against Edgar, accusing him of quackery and violation of medical ethics. But that was all for nothing. The doctor's income reached a whopping $3 million a year, and he could afford the best lawyers in the country.

Painless Parker not only removed teeth. Under his mobile offices, trade flourished. Customers were offered to buy toothpastes and powders, elixirs, potions and other oral products. The doctor himself attended to clients less and less, rarely, preferring to remain the face of the company. He walked around in a disgusting necklace of torn teeth and lectured to the simpletons.

Despite the fact that Parker was more of a showman than a doctor, his contribution to the development of dentistry cannot be underestimated. He has delivered thousands of lectures on dental care, introduced routine oral exams, and for the first time in North America, began treating teeth on credit. Therefore, the cunning doctor is not forgotten, and at Temple University in Philadelphia, where Parker once received his diploma, there is an exposition dedicated to him.

There you can see the doctor's tools, advertising posters and the famous necklace of teeth. But the highlight of a small museum, without a doubt, can be considered a large bucket with teeth pulled out by a doctor. Parker practiced when other people's teeth were no longer a hot commodity, he collected them simply out of vanity and used them as advertising.