Late Victorian Dentistry: Ultra Modern!

Late Victorian Dentistry: Ultra Modern!

While researching dentistry in 1890 for an accurate setting for my title, Isabella’s Calico Groom, I was quite surprised by how advanced and “modern” (by today’s standards) dentistry was. Significant advances in dentistry had occurred in the previous decades, making dentistry truly “modern” compared to patients’ previous experiences. The sheer quantity and magnitude of improvements in dentistry qualify dentists of the 1890s to claim “Modern Dentistry” in their advertisements.

Old West Dentistry

Old West Dentistry

Dentistry in the Old West was dangerous… if a body could find a dentist.

Doc Holliday (of Tombstone and O.K. Corral fame) was a dentist– and a gambler.

Clay Allison attacked his dentist with intent to rip out the doc’s molar–“tooth for tooth.”