Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Tooth Removal

Episode Date: December 2, 2014

This week on Sawbones, Dr. Sydnee and Justin are yanking out your bad teeth and replacing them with worse teeth. Also: Why were black teeth once the height of fashion? Let’s find out! Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers (http://thetaxpayers.net)

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books! One, two, one, two, three, four! We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We pushed on through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines, the escalant macaque for the mouth. Wow! Hello, everybody, and welcome to Saul Bones, a marital tour of of Miss guy to medicine. I'm your co-host just macaroid and I'm Sydney Mac Roy said I don't mean to throw shade That's my fun daughter. Check out. I don't mean to throw shade But uh, and I'm not even sure I'm using that phrase correctly. You look like you're in some pain One yes, I am in some pain and two I actually don't think you're using that phrase correctly, but I know that's life. That's life.

I am in some pain, Justin, that was very astute of you. What's going on? Well, every once in a while, every few months, actually, it's probably been a year since this happened. My wisdom teeth start to act up. Like I think they're kind of half in and so then they try to come in some more. And there's no room. And so then my mouth just hurts a lot for like a week.

And I can't eat anything. I know, ain't it coming? And yes, every winter, I know the winter is coming. The winter's coming. So I always try to come in. They try to come in so they can help me eat all those delicious things giving Christmas treats. Hello, what, what's up?

You're out. No problem. We're on the way. But instead, they just hurt really badly for like a week and then that's your dentists. I my what now. What's your dentists say? He the that dentist that I see, you know, the one I definitely see him. I've definitely been there in the last month and he said that it's fine. Don't worry. It's fine tell Justin. He said tell Justin that I

Dr. Tooth Guy Dr. Tooth guy here. He's very good and real say that I say that they're fine. Don't worry. Sydney, how long has it been since you've been to the dentist? Well, I don't think we need to quibble over numbers six years. Sydney, your medical professional, how long has it been? What year did I get my braces off?

This is not a bit for the show. Sydney refuses to go to the dentist. I don't, my teeth are fine. They're fine. They look great. I brush them often and They're very clean floss Occasionally, huh?

But they're fine. I'm flossing the way most people do and I know myself to use floss It you floss in the same way that people like go salsa dancing, right? You know what'd be fun? You know we haven't done in forever You know what I miss. Oh my God, flossing, right? I'm sorry, we don't all own. What is that thing of water pick? Yeah, water pick. It's like a the squirt gun of flossing.

Yeah, well, I don't have some sort of fancy tooth equipment that I use every morning. Sydney, let's talk more about Tooth getting teeth removed. You'll never do it. You flatly refuse. You did it recently. I did it recently. It was crazy.

Yeah, Justin had his wisdom teeth out over the summer. I felt like I had to get everything done before Charlie got here. Like I had to just get myself as right as I could. Because I knew there would be time for that kind of stuff. But tooth extraction. Yeah, so of stuff. But tooth extraction. Yeah, so let's talk about tooth extraction. This topic actually wisdom teeth specifically came from Sid, not me, another Sid. Not Tuneer and Horn.

An unrelated Sid. So thank you Sid. Suggested wisdom teeth, but I actually kind of expanded it to tooth extraction because, I mean, it's kind of all the same thing. Right. So this is not a new concept. Tooth decay, as you may imagine, is a very old problem. You know, we've had teeth for hundreds of years.

And as long as we've had teeth, they've had problems. And let me just say, by the way, let me preface this episode with this. I know nothing about teeth. Right. I think I've said this before. Yeah, just to with this. I know nothing about teeth. Right. I think I've said this before. Yeah, just to be clear. So you just don't know.

Well, this is not, and I don't think I think most physicians would agree with me on this. We don't know a lot about teeth. Like we know when there's infections and some stuff like that, but honestly, if you have a tooth problem, go to a dentist. Your doctor's gonna be very little help. Why is that?

Like our teeth fact complicated that we need specialists. We need specialists. They're a dentist. They're an existence. They're an existence. They're a dentist. They do exist. I've heard of them.

I don't go to them, but I hear they're great. Right. So, like I said, tooth decay is an own problem. And honestly, the easiest solution if your tooth is bad is to remove it. Get out of there, tooth. So the concept of removing a tooth is bad is to remove it. Get out of there, tooth. So the concept of removing a tooth is not exactly new because it's a very ineligant solution to a problem.

While the tooth is bad, we have no idea why or what's going on or how to fix it. So yank it out of there. Get it out. It was thought, as far back as 5,000 BC, it was documented, the Sumerian documented tooth problems, and it was thought that there were that worms caused tooth decay that you had worms in your teeth. That's not accurate.

No, no. I mean, I hope not. If you have worms in your mouth, that's a whole other problem. Yeah. There were also, they found ancient like dental drills, like hand, like with vines or some kind of like flexible string like material and wood, like a handmade drill. Sounds lovely. Yeah, but they actually use them and then I'm sure they had like some sort of stone tip.

They actually use them for drilling holes in the teeth to probably release evil spirits as opposed to actually trying to fix anything. You know, it's funny. Sit a lot of our episodes tend to start in Egypt. And I wonder if I wonder if it's because they were just that revolutionary or that's just when we decided to start like keeping track of stuff. Well, that's the thing. There's a lot of stuff that we just guess at. We think this is what this was. You know, I mean, even these dental drills that we've discovered, like, that's what we think they are. Could have been sex toys.

Start to say. Probably not sex toys. Probably not sex toys. I don't think humans were that, I mean, like drills. Yeah. Okay. We were with that kinky. That we evolved the kinky.

We evolved the kinky. Um, the code of homerabi advises teeth extraction, but that's not for, that's not for like health reasons. For spiritual reasons? No punishment. No punishment. For me reasons. Right, me and you've been bad.

I'm going to pull your teeth out. Bad guy. Um, the Greek road about. Still got a bubblegum. I for an eye. Was there bubblegum back then? Yeah, it it was bogeum. Sure. Yeah, sure Probably unflavered chicken So just gum just gum not bubble not bubble gum sans bubble gum

Aristotle wrote about oral surgery. He actually wrote about it a lot in terms of the physics Like that we're that are involved in removing a tooth Sure, because there's like we didn't have there's some machines that we didn that are involved in removing a tooth. Sure, because there's like, we didn't have, there's some machines that we didn't have back then. I mean, I mean, that in the, in the simple machines. Yeah, so like you wrote about like the lever. Mm-hmm. You know, how do you use a lever to remove a tooth?

Slowly. Or four steps, you know, same kind of idea. Right. Hypocrite's did remove teeth. It was, it was something that was tried, they tried to avoid if they could, same kind of idea. Right. Hypocrites did remove teeth. It was something that was tried, they tried to avoid if they could because it was very painful and obviously we're talking about a pre-anesthesia era, but hypocrites would do it. There was actually a patron saint of dental problems.

Did you know that? No, I did not. Saint Apollonia. It's nice. Yeah. And she was, the reason she is the saint of dental problems that she was tortured with tooth extraction. She can empathize right there with you, honey. She says,

there are like, you can see like there are tapestries with a picture of like a tooth and a crown or like a person holding a tooth. And that's those are in honor of Saint Apollonia. I think it's kind of cool. So next time you're with the dentist, you know who to say your purge to. But tooth brushes, which we have found ancient evidence of, were not exactly as effective as our current toothbrushes. They're probably about as effective as my current toothbrush.

Hahaha. Sydney also refuses to switch toothbrushes until I literally throw away her old toothbrush in the garbage and buy a new one. I use mine very vigorously and so it gets flat really quickly. And that's what you like. You look at a nice soft, flat, ineffectual bottle. Yours doesn't ever get flat, which makes me think I just, I brush my teeth.

You just get in there. I do. Or maybe you don't brush your teeth hard enough. It's all in perspective. But tooth brushes then were made of horse hair, which was not as hygienic and not as effective and also could damage the gums. And then the tooth paste was basically like ground down chalk or salt or charcoal or even drink something like that.

Fresh. Yeah. And so I mean, I don't know if you're trying to exfoliate your teeth at that point. Yeah. So you just trying to get that deep down. I bet it's not a daily thing. I bet this is more like this. This wouldn't be a daily ritual for most cultures.

Now some cultures, I mean, and I think we talked about this actually in our oil pulling episode that in the in the Ayurvedic texts that actually there were there were some people in history that breast are teeth daily. It was part of their morning oral hygiene ritual But not everybody did so people really didn't have great dental hygiene but Most people died of something else before dental issues could become a very big problem. Hey, so yeah, there you don't really need to worry about, you know, tooth decay. If we look at like the long term effects of tooth decay, we're usually talking about

it setting in in your 40s is when it should really start to become a problem. Unless you just, I don't know, you eat sugar daddies all day long. And I do. Which they weren't eating sugar daddies all day long because they, you know. Then they've been in them, yes, that means. And you freeze. But as time goes on and people live longer,

especially wealthy people who weren't as likely to die from diseases linked to poverty and lack of sanitation, their diets changed, things like sugar became available, tooth decay became a major problem. So then you start seeing a bunch of non-surgical treatments come up because nobody wanted to have their teeth pulled. So, you know, there's some herbal remedies that people recommend. Of course, bloodletting was done for tooth decay.

There were a lot of poltuses and sabs and things you could put on your teeth. But none of this stuff really helped, right? Because once the tooth is dead, it needs to come out. So surgery came along. And who better to perform surgery than a barber? A barber, right. That's who I go to for my dental care, is that? No, I still do. I still do. He gives me a weird look. He'll do it. Charge me. I'm gonna leg though. He's very accommodating though. So Barbara surgeons So weirdest master cuts were they were the those responsible for performing most tooth extractions

This starts way back in like the 1400s. Sure. Yeah, they didn't have anesthesia Obviously we didn't have it at first. So the way they would distract the patient as they were removing the tooth is someone would play a drum very loudly nearby and then play it louder and louder as they got closer to pulling the tooth. Can you imagine how awful that would make it like so much worse? As the drums are just beating and beating and beating.

What on God's green earth is that supposed to solve for? It's just supposed to distract you. I mean, I'm just trying to distract. You gave it a soundtrack. How am I going to be distracted? The drums of time are driving you mad while they're pulling your teeth out. The barbers would then hang the teeth in their shop window

to show how one that they provided the service and two that they were really good at. Sure. Look at all these teeth. Look at me. I got the whole tooth two that they were really good at. Sure. Look at all these teeth. Look at me. I got the whole tooth. See how these rotten teeth? No problem.

They would even actually sometimes hang it around the barber pole. So the barber pole that initially was because of bloody rags and all that stuff, they would also hang teeth around it. What a ghastly thing that was. Yeah, so in your barber's window, you might see some rotten teeth and some jars of blood to demonstrate, hey, you barber's window, you might see like some rotten teeth

and some jars of blood to demonstrate, hey, you can come here, I'll cut your hair, I'll pull your teeth and I'll do some bloodletting while you're at it. I wonder if that ruins the sort of ASMR chill that you get from just getting your haircut. I wonder if you could like schedule, like if you could not pull your base teeth or bloodlet

at all while getting my haircut cut. I really appreciate it. I'm trying to get like a color dye, sort of like a beaver meets the Rachel kind of look and I'd rather you not yank me down to someone's head three feet from me if you don't mind. Um, I just, I also cut your hair too. Like you're like, oh, I feel miserable. But hey, look, look at that. Maybe that was, maybe that's how they, ooh, they upsold you that way. Oh, right. I know you're hurting.

I'll tell the drum guy to stop if you let me cut your hair for $5. I know how to ease that pain. Check out this cute Bob. Um, so as sugar and tobacco became more and more popular, especially sugar, sugar is the big culprit here. Members of the upper class who could afford this stuff regularly really began to suffer tooth decay. So as a result, if you had black teeth, you probably had money. So having blackened teeth became a status symbol for a while. Cool. So there were actually people who would intentionally blacken their teeth. So that they would look like they were rich. Look at me, I'm well to do. Well, yeah, it was kind of like, you know, for a while,

if your wife was overweight, that was a sign that you were very wealthy because then, you know, you were able to feed her a lot. And so it was a status symbol. It's the same idea. Look at those white, pearly whites. They've barely been used. You must be poor. You must be poor, you need some weird tiny lumps of coal like I have. Look at my grill. And a lot of this was because, you know, wealthy, they didn't want to remove their teeth because they're hurt really badly. And you know, blood loss and infection and all that stuff that they didn't understand

or could control for. There was a tool invented for this in the 1700s, it's called a tooth key. And this is just as terrible as you would imagine. It basically has a little claw that is kind of placed and like clamped over the top of the tooth. And then there's a metal rod that goes all the way down and braces against the root. And once you've got it in place, just like a key, you turn it. You twist it until the tooth is free and then pops out. Unfortunately, yeah, I know that's awful.

And unfortunately what usually happened is it would shatter the tooth because it was probably a disease tooth anyway. So you would shatter the tooth or maybe it was probably a disease tooth anyway. So you would shatter the tooth or maybe even break the jaw while you were doing it. And so then you'd just basically be picking little tooth fragments out of your gum for a while. Oh know how people say that they'd like to like, go back and live their life again. I could just live my life again, knowing what I know now,

you know what I mean? The reason I would not do that is because of losing my teeth. It was the worst thing that I can recall. And I've been through some stuff. That was the worst. That was the pits. Oh. Well, you not tell our daughter that as she gets the worst.

Sending Christmas dinner, like you're at church, the fellowship hall, I guess we go in that stupid tooth background, back and forth, just wondering, like, oh God, it's gonna fall out. Oh, out the worst. I don't think it was that traumatizing for everybody. The worst. That's the worst.

I always think that these are good reminders that when people say like, I just wish I could go back and live in the days of castles and forces and princesses. Nope, you don't. Look, there's a tooth key. That's what lies for you and wait back then. Tooth keys.

Put this new spin on your romantic fiction, doesn't it? And you're on your fab you novels. There were in the years that came, there were various other instruments invented, like four steps and levers and all kinds of things. And some of them are early versions of instruments that they still use in dentistry. Now, say, what about replacing teeth? Can we just replace them? Well, I'm going to tell you all about that, but why don't you follow me on down to the billing department real quick? Let's go! But why don't you follow me on down to the billing department real quick? Let's go

Tooth replacement hit me so wealthy people once they did if they ever gave up those little black lumps of delight that everyone's so in those fancy fancy nubs they would They would they would have them replaced. A lot of people couldn't afford to do this, so this would probably be the upper classes. So you could either choose between a live tooth or a dead tooth. I'm going to go to live tooth. Okay, so let's say you want a live tooth.

I do. Here's what you can expect. You're going to head down to your local barber surgeon because they're probably going to be able to provide this for you. They're going to line up some poor people in front of you who are willing to part with a donor tooth. You're going to look through their mouths until you find one that you like. You're going to pay them. The barber surgeon will yank their healthy tooth out and then try it out in your mouth With by attaching it with silver wire hmm. Okay. If you like it

You're good try before you buy I'm way into that test you this tooth if you don't like it All those other donors are still waiting right there literally because they're chained to the ground So basically you would just pick one until you liked it or I guess until you ran out of money and Then they would wire it in place. And then you have a tooth. See, Fonte was complaining about like losing, having to get all our hair cut off and stuff, but look, she still had this avenue of income opened her

to help support progress that. Didn't she have her teeth pulled? Did she? I thought she did. Oh man. I thought that was part of it. Is that part of her thing? Yeah.

I fell asleep. Which is that's it I you know that just made sense to me now as we're doing the substance. I'm pretty sure they did I'm sure someone will tell me if I'm wrong um If you weren't as rich though You may have to get a dead tooth And you know who you're gonna have to call for that Walmart

No, no, no Walmart no, no, Walmart. You're gonna call Walmart. Call Walmart on the phone that exists back then. Well, first of all, Walmart didn't exist. And secondly, who calls Walmart? You just go there. You just go there. Because once you're wandering around looking for a tooth.

I've called Walmart. Who knows what you might realize you need? I've called Walmart before to ask if they have a certain item in stock and their response, the tone of their response is always pretty much, how can I possibly know that? Have you been here? I don't know. Let me spin around while I do with my arm and see what I knock off the shelves. No, I didn't see it. I guess we don't have it or maybe we have all of it. I have no idea. That's intentional because they want you to come there because once you get in Walmart, you're not going to leave with one item. You know what else I needed? Another

laundry basket. I've been getting sick in my laundry baskets. I need another one. And they always have that holiday setup right there. And you know you got to wander through it. Here's a new kind of, what kind of Oreo is this? Triple dipped? And they're right in front. I'm conspiring.

They're right there near the register. They're right there. In plus five. Who's giving me a dead tooth? Okay, so if you, if you weren't as rich as rich you need a dead tooth then you call a resurrectionist You remember a resurrectionist. I do Somebody's gonna go to the one of the resurrection men who had go to the graveyard dig up a body, right? That's right

So usually what would actually happen? They wouldn't even have to dig up the body for you one of the first things that may happen if your corpse was unguarded was that all your teeth were pulled. Cool. So usually the bodies never even made it to the graveyard before all their teeth were yanked out. Um, because people from getting buried alive at least. That's true. They're gonna wake up when they're teeth are getting pulled. Oh, oh, oh, oh, Kimo-sabi. I need those. What's the story? I need those. Where am I? This is, there's been a huge mistake. It kind of makes this little bells,

like unnecessary. Yeah, right. You could make a lot of money off of teeth. So this was, there was a lot of money to be made for the resurrection men, just ganking teeth before they ever took them to the graveyard. And it has to be like a fast turnaround though, right? I don't think it progressed that much.

No, worse. Yes, but I mean, we didn't know any of we were wiring them in place. We didn't know. So, you know, if you needed a tooth, you would pay for a whatever they had. I mean, I'm certain they would like hold out a handful of them and let you pick. And that's how I imagine this straight off goes down. Yeah, something like that. Here, see all these nasty teeth I have? Which one do you want? Which one do you want? I'm leaving them for the tooth fairy

You could the big problem is that you could get TB or syphilis this way cool great Now you're now your inability to chew doesn't seem that bad does it which I know which you could probably also get from the live donor teeth Now that I think about it. I'm sure you could I They actually after a while so, so you could go, you could take these corpses who died of who knows what and were whatever age and had whatever illnesses and pull their teeth, but what you really want, what you really want are young healthy teeth, right?

Fresh. Well, where are you going to find a lot of young healthy people who have sadly died? Spring break. That's terrible. Just a guess, I don't know. That's an awful joke. Oh, take me on the spot. Spring break.

I don't know where. War. War, okay, war. Yes. War. So, sadly, war with scene is a great way to get young healthy teeth to give to rich people. So actually, there were so many corpses were robbed of their teeth after the Battle of

Waterloo in 1815 that for a while dentures and teeth replacements became known as Waterloo teeth. So you get a set of dentures and you'd say those are my Waterloo teeth. They may have indeed come from people that died during the battle of water, loo not necessarily, because in the following wars and battles every time this would happen, their bodies would be ransacked for teeth. So resurrectionists would actually follow soldiers into battle, then just wait for them to be shot and go pull their teeth out. then just wait for them to be shot and go pull their teeth out. They began to not just implant one tooth at a time, but actually create dentures then, because people were losing a lot of teeth. So that's the first dentures we're seeing after this.

And they were basically just wired together either teeth that they found. They could be made of ivory, eventually porcelain, Probably a crazy mix thereof. Yes, actually they were. They often were a crazy mix of just whatever teeth were available. Excellent. That is a great look. And they would just string them together with some kind of wire, and then you'd wear them and tear-ify children.

No. Ah. Did you know, by the way, as I was reading about this, Power of Ear was a dentist? I think I knew that. It sounds like something I probably knew. I didn't know that about Paul Revere. He actually would make some of these dentures and he identified bodies by, he would help identify bodies by, oh yeah, I remember those dentures, that's so-and-so.

So, it was kind of like dental forensics started with Paul Revere. Coming this fall to see. Power of beer is back from the dead CSI revolution. Understand why? CSI Roanoke. CSI sorry CSI Boston. Roanoke was another old time. Yeah. Yeah. Cionny.

Sorry. CSI Boston. There you go. It's like already a show there. Right. I don't know. Maybe that's why I didn't see. Is it already a show probably is it about power of your and dental for like trademark saw bones 2014.

It has to take place in the 1700s though. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So a lot of people when we start talking about old Simon dentures think about George Washington. Because what does everybody think about George Washington? I got them with teeth. He didn't.

He didn't. He didn't. Is that all fully bendy, boss? I feel like that one's pretty well-miff busted. There's probably some stragglers, but I feel like they were like ivory, right? Well, he had many sets of dentures. So yeah, some of them certainly were ivory because of the time period.

Some of them probably had dead people to use in them. Excellent. What an honor. Some of the different materials they would use would begin to take on a cast that I've looked at some of them online that can look kind of wooden so I could see how looking at them from a distance you might think they were wooden, but they absolutely were not. There were people who tried to make wooden dentures but they never worked well. Oh it's porous. Yeah exactly. That was the big problem. They'd become soft.

He had dental troubles his whole life. He actually, I don't know if you knew this, when he was inaugurated, he only had one tooth, one original tooth left. But what a proud, inspiring tooth in us. So he had lots of set of dentures and you can tell his dentures because they always had a hole for that one original tooth to go through. And it's interesting, he actually wrote a letter to his dentist to tell him, hey, I don't think I'm going to, I need you to send me this stuff to New York, this new denture set, because I'm probably not going to be in Philadelphia for a while.

Would you mail this to me? This letter was intercepted by the British during the Revolutionary War and it actually led them to think that he wasn't marching south because of the letter. They didn't move their forces south either. As a result, this probably contributed to us winning the battle at Yorktown. Dentures, turn in the tide. So there you go. Which is interesting.

You'll see that in the next fix, then Adam sure. If you go into the early 19th century, and we're going into kind of like the era of medicine shows, you would see a lot of barber surgeons who would travel around and put on big shows where they would pull teeth. And certainly doctors may have done this as well, because they would dabble in anything, really. So you would travel around, you'd have lots of different performers, you would walk up, and like the other performers would do their acts

to drum up a crowd, and then the big finale would be, and then just pulling teeth. Whoa. Uh-huh. And you're, you got that sick drumbeat? Be a hulk of a show. You would, you'd have the drumbeat, your assistant hulk of a show. You would. You'd have the drumbeat.

Your assistant would be dressed as a clown or something to that effect and like juggle or tell jokes. This just keeps getting better. And the dentist, the idea was that the faster he could pull teeth and the less pain that the patient would then tell the audience they were having, the better the show was. Okay. So and he could do, you know, at least have to be more insane, but really the better the show was. Okay. So, and he could do, you know, at least that's what people would say,

but really the exact inverse is true. Well, maybe there, maybe that was like a psychological thing. There's a lot of pressure like I gotta be, I gotta be tough, everybody's watching me. I don't wanna, you know, I don't wanna show pain. So, in the same time period, unfortunately, they were actually, in addition to people who actually needed their teeth pulled.

Because I mean, presumably all these people who were going to medicine shows and having barbersurgeons pull their teeth, this was their last resort. I need my teeth pulled, you know, it hurts really badly. So I will let this dentist kind of make a show out of me and pull my teeth. There were people who were having dental extractions done

for reasons other than tooth decay, specifically in psychiatric facilities. Sometimes it was a very functional decision. Patients who were psychotic and they thought were at risk of biting people. They would occasionally pull their teeth, which is terrible. In addition, there was something that I actually decided to look up because as many people have asked us on Twitter, I do watch the Nick. It's a wonderful show on cinematics about the heroic era of medicine.

I don't because I can't take that. Justin can't handle it because it's pretty gruesome for those of you watching. It's pretty gory. But if you like this kind of stuff that we talk about in our show, you would probably like this show. I certainly do. On the show, there was a patient who had to go to a psychiatric hospital and was cared for by a doctor Henry Cotton,

who was an actual psychiatrist at the New Jersey State Hospital in Trenton in the early 1900s. This is a real person who was portrayed by Mr. John Hodgman. You're friend of mine, John Hodgman. Yes, on the show. Our old buddy. Our old buddy, John Hodgman, who as far as I know does not believe in pulling teeth to cure psychiatric disease. Correct.

No. But the physician he played, Dr. Henry Cotton did. And he thought that because of bacterial infections in your teeth and other places too, he also thought the same with the colon that you could cure insanity by removing teeth or even removing your colon. So he would have many patients teeth removed as treatment for their various psychiatric illnesses. That obviously is not a treatment for anything. Right. Psychiatric, I would not remove teeth for that reason or to prohibit biting. That's bad. Anyway, as time goes on, dental

instruments obviously became better, but the big breakthrough was really in the 1840s with the use of ether and nitrous oxide for dental procedures. So, when dental is made there. Yes, so then it wasn't so horrifying to have your tooth removed. Today, about 5 million Americans each year have their wisdom teeth extracted. I know, I was one. Yes, those are your third molars. They're named wisdom teeth, you know why? Because they come in once you're older?

Exactly, because they usually come in in like your 20s and you're presumably wiser, although if I was wiser in my 20s, I'd... No. Yeah, somebody should have told me. They are, in a sense, vestigial. We really don't need wisdom teeth. You know what? I thought that too.

But after I got them removed, I was definitely aware of some deep chewing. Like sometimes I just don't feel like I'm giving food my best chew. And I was definitely missing the chewing surface there at the beginning. Like I think you were. I think there was like some deep down.

Like, if I mean like a Charleston chew or maybe a cow tail or a sugar daddy, I feel like I wasn't giving it my best chew for a while. I feel like I've come around to it, but I wouldn't say completely vestigial. I miss that chewing surface I do. Well, what we really needed them for was like plant material that we had down there. Well, I don't, I don't miss any of that. No, I know that.

That's why you're down to many cookie points. That's a joke. I love salad this year. But most of us don't need them so we don't our jaws are not quite big enough to accommodate them. So as a result, they get stuck, they don't come in completely and if they're not in completely and they're causing infections or impaction or pain, then you need to have them removed. It actually varies. Some people don't have wisdom teeth. Like there are some genetic lines in Mexico where just there are no more wisdom teeth.

They're not born with them anymore. Because they don't need them, so they've already lost them. Whereas some other parts of the world you go to and 100% of the culture has wisdom teeth. Or double wisdom teeth. Sometimes they have more wisdom teeth. Maybe they have eight wisdom teeth. You don't need those don't need those get those removed anyway That's gonna do it for us here this week. We hope you've had a good time. Thank you to folks tweeting about the show folks like Elizabeth

RJ Moore Tony Eric Ashley Harlequin Clarityarity, Brin, McEl, Amanda, cutie, Clarice, angry, POTU, Chazoo, Scout, Maggie, Mud Sucker, Foxy, Homegirl, it mentors. So many others, Ross, Los Opio, many, many others. Thank you so much for tweeting my show. We're at solbona's on Twitter. So if you want to get a hold of us there Then do it or you can always email us. Yeah, solbons at maximumfund.org

Yeah, if you have any topic suggestions or comments we love to hear them. We're also Twitter ourselves She's at Sydney McHeroi sSYD in EEMCELRI. Oh, why? And he's just at just the wall. Wow. Sorry. Just not picking up my keys. Well, like everybody knows now.

Not everybody. Does anyone need to spell Justin? No. Okay, fine. We're on the maximum fun network. There's a ton of great shows there you can listen to. Stop podcasting yourself is to really funny guys Canadians

If you will and I think you will I think you're gonna enjoy those fellows Just as one example My brother trapezes also launching a new program Tomorrow that you'll have to Check out oxmanfund.org to find more about that. And you can always check out my brother and my brother and me. That's true, that's another podcast that we do on the network. But there's a lot there, MaximalFund.org is the place to check it totally out.

Thanks for the taxpayer for letting us use their song medicines for our intro and outro. And thanks to you for listening, we'll be back with you next Tuesday until then I'm Justin McQuarrie. I'm Sydney McQuarrie. As always don't drill a hole in your head. Alright!