What was ideal dentistry like seventy years ago?
Thanks to dentist Dr. Mac Lee of Edna, Texas for bringing this Navy training video to our attention for this edition of TimeWarp Tuesday. You will be both impressed by the way things were done back then and relieved that dentistry has progressed so much since. Even though it’s a bit longer than you’d usually sit through, remember PEARLS! There are pearls here, even in the way, way back times.
Like Smears! They were doing bacterial profiles in 1944! And Check Out That Piece of Autoclave Artwork. That is definitely something that would look good in your practice, and you would have to drive it, like you would a classic auto, not daily, but just BECAUSE. Sure, the new one is faster, but the old is a CLASSIC and you would use it because it’s too cool just to keep it locked up in a museum somewhere.
Be sure to look out for these bitty tids of juice as well:
• Procaine. That looks like some scary stuff to be injecting into people.
• The long exposure time on the radiograph.
• 10 minute sterilization in a water bath? Really?
• The surgery cart and tongs are creepy awesome.
• What the heck kind of toothbrushing technique is that?
With an emphasis of keeping everything super clean, this is probably the most memorable line in the video:
“Never should there be a sign of the last patient.”
We should all hope there’d be no bits of him anywhere afterwards.
Welcome to the latest edition of Timewarp Tuesdays, where you are NOT asked to click your heels three times, or threatened to have houses dropped on your relatives, or coerced to chant “there’s no place like home” because there was much more to 1939 than overbudget Hollywood films.
Admit it, you can’t help but call the long cylindrical chunk of metal pointing out from your x-ray machine anything but a cone. Even though it probably wasn’t a cone when you were in dental school. It hasn’t been a cone for over 30 years. But maybe you’re old enough to remember a cone getting pointed at you when you were a kid, like I am.
