Tooth Jumping and other DIY dentistry

Over in Salt Lake City, a woman has been charged with felony child abuse for using a pair of needle-nose pliers to extract some of her 7-year-old son's teeth while in a Walmart restroom. She picked up the pliers and some hand sanitizer in the store and then headed to the restroom to perform the dental work. No anesthetic, of course. She claimed her son's teeth were loose and infected. A dentist who later examined the boy disagreed. [ksl.com]

This reminded me of the old backwoods art of tooth jumping. From Smoky Mountain Voices: A Lexicon of Southern Appalachian Speech:

tooth-jumping: [vbl. n. the practice of extracting a tooth with hammer and nail.] "You take a cut nail (not one o' those round wire nails) and place its squar p'int agin the ridge of the tooth, jest under the edge of the gum. Then jump the tooth out with a hammer. A man who knows how can jump a tooth without it hurtin' half as bad as pullin'" [K:] "I have told dentists and physicians in the North about 'tooth-jumping,' and they laughed at me." (Bob) "Well, they needn't to laugh; for it's so. Some men got to be as experienced at it as tooth-dentists are at pullin'. They'd cut around the gums, and then put the nail at jest sich an angle, slantin' downward for an upper tooth or upwards for a lower tooth, and hit one lick." [K:] "Would the tooth come out the first lick?" [Bob] "Ginerally. If it didn't, you might as well stick your head in a bee-gum & fergit about it." [K:] "Back teeth extracted that way?" [Bob:] "Yes, sir—any kind of a tooth"

Tooth-jumping in rural Tennessee

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jun 08, 2017
Category: Teeth

Comments

Reminds me of a window salesman who told us that instead of going to an orthodontist, he straightened his kids' teeth with pressure from a popsicle stick over time.

Posted by RobK on 06/08/17 at 10:46 AM

I had all my back molars extracted at one time and mom took me to the orthodontist's office for the procedure. Since I was under complete anesthesia for the time required I don't remember a thing. However mom told me later it sounded like a sculptor was at work at times, with a hammer ringing off a metal chisel.

For a dentist who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, I recommend a novel titled "McTeague" by Frank Norris.

Posted by KDP on 06/08/17 at 04:22 PM

I thought the accepted way to do it was to tie the tooth to a doorknob and then slam the door shut. Seems like one of my gang did that when we were young'uns.

I saw an extraction right in a friend's family living room. However, his father was actually our dentist and had some of his tools at home.

Posted by Virtual on 06/08/17 at 06:04 PM

RobK, my mom tortured me for 6 months doing that to make the underbite less advised by yep , the dentist , skwiek swiek 20 minutes a day..Do that for a year and y look like Bugs bunny.

Posted by hemaworstje on 06/08/17 at 06:16 PM

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