Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Shout out to our super
Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegrum. Shout out to our super producer, the
Speaker 1: one and only Max Williams. I'm ben. I guess I
Speaker 1: should I should come clean. I put off some dental
Speaker 1: work during the pandemic. And when I when I came
Speaker 1: back to the dentist chair, who was the trip man? Well,
Speaker 1: I put on some weight during the pandemic. Is that
Speaker 1: the same thing? No, I know it's not, but it's
Speaker 1: common right. People let things go during these quarantine times,
Speaker 1: and dental work certainly is one of them. I think
Speaker 1: we don't remember which show was on, but we've talked
Speaker 1: recently about I'm no by the way, uh dentals, I
Speaker 1: know what it was. It was. We did a stuff
Speaker 1: that I want you to know episode recently about the
Speaker 1: kind of weird world of dentistry fraud, which is kind
Speaker 1: of a thing, and this sort of rolls into that
Speaker 1: there's some dentistry fraud going on in today's story, but
Speaker 1: also some weird historical, kind of positive things that came
Speaker 1: from this fraud. What are we talking about. We're talking
Speaker 1: about the life of a dude named Painless Parker. That
Speaker 1: was not his Christian name. We'll get to that. His
Speaker 1: name is Edgar Parker. That's what he was born in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two. As but yeah, this guy was basically
Speaker 1: what you might call a circus dentist. What does that mean, Well,
Speaker 1: we'll tell you, yes, circus dentist. And and it's a phrase.
Speaker 1: We can back up this This entire this entire circus
Speaker 1: uh comes about because when Parker opens his practice back
Speaker 1: in two it's not an immediate hit. His business is
Speaker 1: struggling a little bit, and so he figures he has
Speaker 1: to do something else and he starts thinking outside of
Speaker 1: the box. That's what leads us to real life dental circus.
Speaker 1: As we dive into the story, I want to point
Speaker 1: out we're getting a lot of this information from several sources.
Speaker 1: Smithsonian Magazine in particular, with the great title remember when
Speaker 1: teeth pulling was fun? As well as Mental floss and
Speaker 1: the Santa Cruz Sentinel. That's right, there's also a New
Speaker 1: York Times article. Was Painless Parker a vaudeville joke or
Speaker 1: a real Brooklyn Dentist by Michael Pollock and a series
Speaker 1: of books written by Peter M. Pointage and Art N. G. Kristen,
Speaker 1: who are dental historians. Um, just wanted to knock that
Speaker 1: out here at the top, but yeah, it's true, Ben Um.
Speaker 1: So this guy, Edgar Parker, he studied dentistry at what
Speaker 1: today is Temple University. He was born in New Brunswick, Canada,
Speaker 1: in the town of Tynemouth Creek, which is on the
Speaker 1: shores there of New Brunswick, Canada. Edgar Rudolph Randolph Parker.
Speaker 1: He's got a Rudolph and a Randolph there just to
Speaker 1: just to be safe. But his family was very religious
Speaker 1: and he was he entered into initially for school Baptist
Speaker 1: seminary at St. Martin's and he was he was actually
Speaker 1: expelled for what was referred to as un christian like behavior. Um.
Speaker 1: He had also spent some time as a sailor and
Speaker 1: apparently cursed like one while in seminary. That that is,
Speaker 1: that is my conjecture there. But I can only imagine
Speaker 1: what the sailor like behavior that led to him being
Speaker 1: expelled from seminary might have been. Anything really could have
Speaker 1: been the jokes, right right, Maybe, I mean, yeah, there
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things that would have sounded
Speaker 1: absolutely normal to us in that may have been you know,
Speaker 1: absolutely scandalous for him to say during this time. So
Speaker 1: he he is terrified of going back home to his
Speaker 1: folks and saying I got kicked out of seminary. Instead,
Speaker 1: he becomes. Instead, he discovers his hustle, and it's a
Speaker 1: hustle that'll have for the rest of his life. He
Speaker 1: becomes a door to door salesman, and his boss directs
Speaker 1: him to never like never leave people alone until they
Speaker 1: buy something from him, and his father eventually catches up
Speaker 1: with him eight nine. He is not over the moon
Speaker 1: that his son has become a door to door salesman
Speaker 1: rather than a preacher, so he drags him home. Kids
Speaker 1: seventeen years old, runs away again, goes to see catches
Speaker 1: dan gay fever. He's dropped off in Barbadosrhe right, that's
Speaker 1: it's like the dangay fever. Uh that you may be
Speaker 1: thinking of dysenterry Maybe what's but I thought dangay fever
Speaker 1: had something to do with like he can give you
Speaker 1: bleeding flu like symptoms and rashes. Okay, okay, so no, no,
Speaker 1: not necessarily the direa. Sorry, thank you for setting me
Speaker 1: straight back. He's he's now stricken with this unfortunate illness
Speaker 1: while in the midst of trying to get his life
Speaker 1: back together, I imagine, right, yeah, and the doctors who
Speaker 1: are taking care of him impress him. You know. He
Speaker 1: feels like they saved his life. He feels like this
Speaker 1: maybe the most important vocation in the world. And so
Speaker 1: when he gets back from another misadventure, he asked his parents, Hey,
Speaker 1: can I can I be a doctor? I think that's
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's my path forward in life.
Speaker 1: But what does what does his folks do? Well, they
Speaker 1: were not a family of particular means. They thought it
Speaker 1: was a little price to go to medical school, but
Speaker 1: they figured they could, you know, spring for the next
Speaker 1: best thing, which was sort of an emerging feel at
Speaker 1: the time, the field of dentistry um, which he later
Speaker 1: according to a fabulous article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel
Speaker 1: in Santa Cruz, they also spent some time. There's going
Speaker 1: to come up in our story soon. He referred to
Speaker 1: it as the noble tooth plumbing profession, plumb the depths
Speaker 1: of of the Noble tooth Um, so he enrolled at
Speaker 1: an initially New York College of Dentistry. He again didn't
Speaker 1: have very much money. He had just enough to pay
Speaker 1: for tuition, but didn't really have enough to eat, so
Speaker 1: he kind of had to figure out a side hustle
Speaker 1: to to make ends meet. And so he I don't
Speaker 1: know if we've mentioned this, but the school of traveling
Speaker 1: salesmanship that he ascribed to was sort of that like
Speaker 1: stick your foot in the door and don't take no
Speaker 1: for an answer situation. So he essentially adapted that mentality
Speaker 1: to a door to door dental practice. US Before he
Speaker 1: had even gotten his credentials, which was very common at
Speaker 1: the time, many of the dentists that were practicing were
Speaker 1: unlicensed because there really wasn't a whole lot of official
Speaker 1: oversight yet because it was a relatively new field and
Speaker 1: preventative dental care was really practically a non existent thing.
Speaker 1: So he ends up going to Philadelphia Dental College next.
Speaker 1: This is prestigious. This is the second oldest school of
Speaker 1: its sort in the country. And you know, as you said, Noel,
Speaker 1: that's now known as the Temple University Maurice H. Kornberg
Speaker 1: School of dentistry. Santa Cruz Sentinel asked the dean of
Speaker 1: the college, Dr amid Ismail, how Parker was during his
Speaker 1: time there, and he said Parker was a terrible student
Speaker 1: and that he only graduated because he literally begged the
Speaker 1: dean at that time to pass him, which I didn't
Speaker 1: know you could do. Yeah, it seems like this is
Speaker 1: a very tender hearted dean, you know to be says
Speaker 1: I've I've I've never gotten out of any uh college
Speaker 1: failures by begging I or or maybe this guy's gift
Speaker 1: of oration was just so profound that it worked. He's
Speaker 1: been door to door, he was almost ah, well, he
Speaker 1: was almost a preacher, So maybe just leveraged those skills. Anyway,
Speaker 1: fast forward, he's twenty years old. He graduates, as he said,
Speaker 1: eight nine ninety two, the same year he opens his practice.
Speaker 1: He returns home and he thinks, Okay, I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: things differently. I'm an innovator. He's saying to himself, what
Speaker 1: is he? What does he innovator? First? Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I want to point out one thing that I think
Speaker 1: is really fascinating about his time as a as a
Speaker 1: door to door dentist, and by the way. He also
Speaker 1: opened up his very first office before he even finished
Speaker 1: dental school properly, like on seventeenth and Broadway in New York.
Speaker 1: But when he found a procedure that he didn't have
Speaker 1: the skills to perform, he promised to come back later.
Speaker 1: And the indication there was that, you know, once he
Speaker 1: got to that chapter in the in the textbook that
Speaker 1: he was studying, because again, very very early, not a
Speaker 1: whole lot of technology really involved in dentistry and certainly
Speaker 1: not very effective pain management, you know, medications and in
Speaker 1: the like. Um so, yeah, we've got him finally getting
Speaker 1: out of school at the age of twenty in eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety two. He comes home, he hooks up with a druggist,
Speaker 1: a guy by the name of George Mallory. And I
Speaker 1: think you're talking about innovations, Ben, and I was talking
Speaker 1: about the lack of pain medication. We don't have no
Speaker 1: vacane yet for quite some time, but we you may
Speaker 1: know that cocaine was a hell of a drug then
Speaker 1: as well as it is today, and was used in
Speaker 1: the dental profession. It was actually used for quite some time.
Speaker 1: Uh they called a pharmaceutical grade cocaine and it was
Speaker 1: something that um you would find in dental offices, maybe
Speaker 1: even as recently as the nineteen eighties. But he and
Speaker 1: George Mallory, the druggist, tinkered around with a formula and
Speaker 1: ended up with a deluded solution of cocaine that they
Speaker 1: called hydrocane, and it is considered the kind of precursor
Speaker 1: to novocaine. And it was a very very modern innovation
Speaker 1: for the time. And so it came to pass that
Speaker 1: Parker was prepared to be on like the bleeding edge
Speaker 1: of dentistry. But as I said, at the very top,
Speaker 1: nobody showed up to his job. It was like the
Speaker 1: nicest restaurant that no one ate at. And so he
Speaker 1: was worried that maybe some maybe there are hints that
Speaker 1: maybe his reputation for being kicked out a seminary had
Speaker 1: something to do with this, or maybe that was just
Speaker 1: all in his mind. He said, Okay, I've got either way.
Speaker 1: He decided he's got to be embedded in the culture.
Speaker 1: He's got to be embedded in the society around him,
Speaker 1: rather right, because usually people like to work with folks
Speaker 1: they already know. So he starts going to church, not
Speaker 1: just on Sundays, but twice on Sundays. He's trying to
Speaker 1: really show out. You know, he wants to be the
Speaker 1: honor student of the church. I guess he's sitting right
Speaker 1: in the front. He's seeing a passing the collection plate.
Speaker 1: He's got a huge bible that he carries around everywhere.
Speaker 1: But no one, no one goes to his practice. There
Speaker 1: are other dentists around, or they are just a fraid
Speaker 1: of dentists. His profits after three months are something abominably low,
Speaker 1: like seventy five cents. And he goes to his pal
Speaker 1: Mallory and he's like, Hey, what the heck man and
Speaker 1: Matt we're paraphrasing. Mallory says, Oh, you know, people are
Speaker 1: afraid of dentists. If they find when they trust, they
Speaker 1: stick with him and the town's long established dentists, the
Speaker 1: cornered the market. And that's part of what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: the stuff they don't want you to know episode because
Speaker 1: it can be an inherently uncomfortable proposition to trust people
Speaker 1: have for dentists they know can be pretty powerful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. I mean, even though like most of the
Speaker 1: work is done by hygienis that kind of rotate in
Speaker 1: and out. I mean, I guess some have like a
Speaker 1: smaller staff, but that matters, that final little inspection, you know,
Speaker 1: from the dentist there, like, you know, the main procedure
Speaker 1: they kind of give their sign off on, even if
Speaker 1: they're not the actual ones digging around in your mouth
Speaker 1: the whole time. Um, that relationship matters. And I think
Speaker 1: that's something that Parker really understood that they He needed
Speaker 1: to find a way to kind of take the fear
Speaker 1: out of dentistry, and he he did a thing that
Speaker 1: was probably the most bizarre and extreme version of that
Speaker 1: proposition that I could imagine. And by the way, I
Speaker 1: want to give huge thanks and credit to the Santa
Speaker 1: Cruz Sentinel author ross Eric Gibson Um for a very
Speaker 1: very cool article in the paper called Painless Parker and
Speaker 1: the Showmanship of dentistry. And that showmanship evolved, but it
Speaker 1: began with something quite simple. The idea of soliciting patients
Speaker 1: at the time was considered unethical. It's real catch twenty two.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting, right, I've got no patience, No one
Speaker 1: knows about me. My competition is is is cornered the market,
Speaker 1: and yet it's unethical for me to solicit or to
Speaker 1: advertise for my practice. But he decided, you know what,
Speaker 1: screw it. I'm in the rock and a hard place,
Speaker 1: like you said, and I am going to put myself
Speaker 1: out there, and he dubbed himself. He gave himself a
Speaker 1: moniker that he thought would really sell his practice, and
Speaker 1: that was the name Painless Parker. Because at the time
Speaker 1: these offices or these practices were called dental parlors. They
Speaker 1: were again mostly staffed by unlicensed dentists, and they were
Speaker 1: pretty unsanitary. There wasn't any standard of sanitation or sterilization yet,
Speaker 1: and this stuff was painful. They didn't have his water
Speaker 1: down cocaine solution. I don't imagine um. So he figured
Speaker 1: that Painless Moniker was really going to get people in
Speaker 1: the door. And he claimed that he could extract a
Speaker 1: tooth for fifty cents and it would be painless, and
Speaker 1: then if it wasn't, he would pay the patient five dollars,
Speaker 1: five dollars that he admittedly did not have. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he also, we should point out, paid for that sign,
Speaker 1: that Painless Parker sign in dentures. He didn't have the
Speaker 1: money to pay the signmakers, so he gave the signmaker
Speaker 1: a new set of dentures. And to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: this cocaine solution hydro kane didn't always work. Sometimes sometimes
Speaker 1: Parker would just say like, hey, do you like whiskey,
Speaker 1: and then give them a glass of whiskey. Either way,
Speaker 1: the narcotic did tend to work, and soon he was
Speaker 1: making hand over fist money as a traveling dentist. And
Speaker 1: he would he would particularly love to borrow a nearby
Speaker 1: rocking chair for his patients so he could lean them
Speaker 1: back and work on them. And then he started becoming
Speaker 1: a He started becoming a character. You know. He knew
Speaker 1: that he had to be memorable in the public eye.
Speaker 1: He had to somehow succeed against the intense this people
Speaker 1: had a dentist. So he went big. He got a
Speaker 1: white coat and a top hat, and then he would
Speaker 1: put planted. He would gather an audience right by a wagon,
Speaker 1: just like you would imagine a medicine show, and then
Speaker 1: he would put plants in the audience. I mean people
Speaker 1: pretending they didn't know him, not like a good elephant
Speaker 1: or or something or something. You know what it makes
Speaker 1: me think of. It makes me think of the the regular,
Speaker 1: the real life incarnation of the Wizard of Oz and
Speaker 1: the Wizard of Oz movie. What was his name, like
Speaker 1: Dr Mysterio or something like that medicine show. Yeah, it was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they had like he had like a big wagon
Speaker 1: with his logo painted on the side and would pedal
Speaker 1: these you know, tonics or whatever like mystical cures. And
Speaker 1: you know, they called him snake oil salesman because they
Speaker 1: were rooted in hucksterism, and it was, you know, there
Speaker 1: was no truth to any of the remedies. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was offering a service that was real, and I
Speaker 1: mean and he was offering a narcotic that would hopefully
Speaker 1: help numb the pain, because let's just remember cocaine is
Speaker 1: a numbing agent, or can be a numbing agent, and
Speaker 1: that was how it was used. But apparently also like
Speaker 1: this it comes a little later, but he uh, he
Speaker 1: would sometimes not even fully inject the tooth. He would
Speaker 1: just sort of squirt it on there on the cavity. Um.
Speaker 1: I think probably because he was trying to conserve his supply.
Speaker 1: I'm just guessing there, but yeah, it's true. He was
Speaker 1: definitely like on the street corner with his top hat
Speaker 1: kind of like making a big song and dance out
Speaker 1: of this whole thing, and it was yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me go back to the plant thing because it's
Speaker 1: very important. First, it's it's unethical. We can agree. But
Speaker 1: he here's what he did with the patient or his
Speaker 1: fake patient, his test any patient. They would pretend to
Speaker 1: pull out a mohler and then show the audience, Hey,
Speaker 1: I've been hiding this tooth. This this extraction from painless
Speaker 1: Parker was a breeze and in a brass band would start.
Speaker 1: There would be people dancing and cortortionists, and then this
Speaker 1: guy would be you know, step right up, step right up,
Speaker 1: and this podka, uh fifty cents extraction five dollars if
Speaker 1: you feel that out to pain. And then while he
Speaker 1: was pulling the tooth out, Uh, this this is so crazy,
Speaker 1: he would he would signal the band to reach a crescendo,
Speaker 1: and so as this person was screaming, if they were screaming, like,
Speaker 1: oh god, you said it wouldn't hurt be you, son
Speaker 1: of an. It's like brass bands are loud. Um uh
Speaker 1: definitely cold John out of screen. I do wonder that
Speaker 1: how did he get away without having to like pay
Speaker 1: out five bucks every time that he had to stamp
Speaker 1: his foot for the brass band, presumably because someone was like,
Speaker 1: you know, screaming and agony. I wondered about that to Nuel,
Speaker 1: because as we'll find, he did make some enemies, he
Speaker 1: did get away unscathed here. Uh that answer, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's tough, it gets. I wonder that was an early
Speaker 1: I wonder if that was an early part of his gimmick.
Speaker 1: And then when he brought in the brass band and
Speaker 1: the contortion is maybe he abandoned that part because he
Speaker 1: had enough bells and whistles to bring people without the
Speaker 1: money back here. Yeah, it must be because he's got
Speaker 1: so much overhead now he is. And again this is
Speaker 1: the time when he really started kind of like being
Speaker 1: a little bit cheap. When it came to doling out
Speaker 1: that sweet sweet, you know, tooth juice, he would occasionally
Speaker 1: only scored it on the tooth, or he wouldn't inject
Speaker 1: it at all, or like you said, or just like
Speaker 1: give him a little bit of whiskey, or squired it
Speaker 1: in the cavity. And even when he injected it, like
Speaker 1: you said, sometimes didn't work. But still, against all odds,
Speaker 1: that brass band man that did it, that was more
Speaker 1: of a helpful distraction I think than the pain medication even.
Speaker 1: I think the whole circus of it all gave people
Speaker 1: something to focus on outside of the nasty b in
Speaker 1: this of going to the dentist. And let's not forget
Speaker 1: too people that are at the point this is actually
Speaker 1: actually probably also a good um potential answer for the
Speaker 1: five dollar back guarantee. People that are getting to this
Speaker 1: point where they're going and seeking out a dentist are
Speaker 1: already in horrible pain, right, I mean, this would have
Speaker 1: been a time where they would have let it go
Speaker 1: to the point where they're just like dying. We've had
Speaker 1: too problems in the past, both of us, I believe in,
Speaker 1: and when it's bad, you'll do anything, you know, you'll
Speaker 1: do anything to get it to get it taken care of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a really good point. And you know, just for context,
Speaker 1: at this time in history, the vast majority of people
Speaker 1: aren't really going in for checkups. Right, Like you said,
Speaker 1: no preventive preventative dentistry. But here's what here's what Parker
Speaker 1: has done. Now he's he's made his profession a spectacle
Speaker 1: and now people are responding to a social event that
Speaker 1: they head together. Part of the fear and the pain
Speaker 1: for people when they visit the dentist is it's you
Speaker 1: and one other person in this room, right, But now
Speaker 1: you're seeing people say, look he pulled my tooth out
Speaker 1: and it's fine, and you don't know their line and
Speaker 1: there's a band and it's awesome and people are all cheering. Oh,
Speaker 1: and you get this really cool if I may max
Speaker 1: fanfare whenever it's the tooth is successfully extracted, like like
Speaker 1: like like okay, it's like it's like we won the
Speaker 1: level of Zelda, you know, I mean, you're like, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's this this whole queue, everyone's like the tensions
Speaker 1: building and then dada and then Zelda. Soundtrack is based
Speaker 1: on Parker's band. It's a huge family's historical fact. But
Speaker 1: this wasn't this didn't last he had made this, you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: he had to some in the dental profession as it
Speaker 1: was starting to become more I mean, it wasn't. Let look,
Speaker 1: he went to this, you aniversity that was very much
Speaker 1: a serious dental university, Temple what what was then what
Speaker 1: is now Temple Um in Philadelphia, So you know, dentistry
Speaker 1: was beginning to become a serious profession, and those who
Speaker 1: took it seriously really resented Parker. So you know, he
Speaker 1: was the subject of lawsuits, he was the subject of
Speaker 1: a lot of negative talk in the press even and
Speaker 1: he eventually decided, you know what, maybe this is a
Speaker 1: little too much for me. So he went to Canada,
Speaker 1: the West coast of Canada, and tried to turn this
Speaker 1: whole thing around and become one of those uh, you know,
Speaker 1: legitimate dentists that hated him so much in Victoria, and
Speaker 1: he set up shop there with a regular old dental practice,
Speaker 1: and then he got in trouble because he did not
Speaker 1: have a local license. So it didn't matter if you
Speaker 1: graduated from this prestigious university. He needed local accreditation. And
Speaker 1: so he has a brief adventure that I would love
Speaker 1: to read as a comic book graphic novel spinoff. For
Speaker 1: part of eight into eight. Parker lives in a place
Speaker 1: called Sitka, Alaska. He is the state's loan dentist, the
Speaker 1: dentist of the Frozen Frontier. I can see it now,
Speaker 1: you know, I can feel some epic music there. His
Speaker 1: parents and sister. Meanwhile, they moved to Brooklyn, and in
Speaker 1: May of eight he goes and visits them, and he's
Speaker 1: still he's still very budget conscious, right, So he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can afford someone to play
Speaker 1: the horn for me for my act, So maybe I
Speaker 1: can learn to play the cornet myself. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: work because he needs to focus on being a dentist.
Speaker 1: I totally. And he also apparently has no inherent musical
Speaker 1: talent whatsoever. Um and you know is catterwalling away on
Speaker 1: this cornet and a neighbor woman who's practicing the piano
Speaker 1: bangs on the door and says, who's making all that racket?
Speaker 1: And a reply comes from within. This is from a
Speaker 1: Santa Cruz Sentinel article as well. A reply comes from within,
Speaker 1: Oh that's my brother, painless Parker. And wouldn't you know it,
Speaker 1: Parker and the complaining pianists eventually get married. It was
Speaker 1: that's what they call him, meat cute right there. That's
Speaker 1: a meat cute. That is, he opens an office in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: but he's still struggling to just to make rent, much
Speaker 1: less make a profit or save some money. The guy
Speaker 1: has collect his rent is a guy named William Bibe
Speaker 1: or b B who said, quote, look, Parker, you're being
Speaker 1: a dope. There are lots of doctor Parker's. He was
Speaker 1: called himself Dr. E. R. Parker at this time, but
Speaker 1: there's only one painless Parker and his. This guy tells him,
Speaker 1: you know, if you go back to do it in
Speaker 1: your circus stuff, you'll be a millionaire. And a million
Speaker 1: dollars was a lot more money back then as well,
Speaker 1: no joke. And this guy Bebee Beebe, that's got I
Speaker 1: don't know, let's let's standardize Bbie. What do you think ben?
Speaker 1: I like calling him the Bebe. Let's call the bebes
Speaker 1: so the bebes Um, he's got a name for it.
Speaker 1: He turns out used to be a manager for the P. T.
Speaker 1: Barnum Circus or Barnum, you know, you know, the biggest,
Speaker 1: the greatest show on Earth and all that. And uh
Speaker 1: he knew this exactly the kind of background that that
Speaker 1: Parker came from. And he was like, what are you doing? Man?
Speaker 1: You were a sensation. I know it was. I mean,
Speaker 1: Barnum was always a little scandalous when he'd come to town,
Speaker 1: and the Beebes saw that kind of spark in parker
Speaker 1: Um and he said, you know, what are you doing? Man?
Speaker 1: You gotta go back to being the greatest dental showman
Speaker 1: you know around and he was trying Parker was trying
Speaker 1: to you know, turn his ways around. I guess um,
Speaker 1: I don't know that he had shame about it, but
Speaker 1: it does seem like from his trajectory bend, especially that
Speaker 1: weird sojourn to Alaska, like he was struggling with it
Speaker 1: a little bit right with his his own sense of self,
Speaker 1: Like what am I? You know, he had a identity
Speaker 1: crisis or something. He's like, am I just one of
Speaker 1: the rabble? You know? Do I just want to be
Speaker 1: one of the you know, the the dental herd, or
Speaker 1: do I want to like be something greater? And he
Speaker 1: sort of lost sight of who he was for a while,
Speaker 1: and now this guy is helping him find that again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so he gets pretty, he gets it, gets weird.
Speaker 1: He's back to he's back to being this showman. Like
Speaker 1: you said, he's got his this guy's outfit on again.
Speaker 1: Picture the you know, the circus ring master and the
Speaker 1: tall hat, the long tails and uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: somewhat grizzly edition of a necklace made out of teeth,
Speaker 1: which was uh somehow not creepy to a lot of people. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then they he and William, the Bebes made a
Speaker 1: genuine circus. They had acrobats, they had jugglers. Parker even
Speaker 1: rode atop an elephant a time or two. And this
Speaker 1: this change the game for his office. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: waves of people are coming in. He's booked to the gills.
Speaker 1: He has to turn people away. We've got no room
Speaker 1: for more clients. He ends up renting. He goes big,
Speaker 1: immediately renting six more offices. He hires other no offense
Speaker 1: Parker slightly more legit dentists to run these offices, and
Speaker 1: he pays them more than they would make working somewhere else.
Speaker 1: But they still don't like him. It feels bad. They
Speaker 1: feel like the money is is somehow dirty. Because of
Speaker 1: the the spectacle Parker is associated with, people see him
Speaker 1: more as an entertainer in some circles or than a dentist.
Speaker 1: And other dentists, you know, other dentists. It's no secret
Speaker 1: they seem to look down upon him pretty severely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and speaking of the Bebe, I just want to
Speaker 1: point out this wonderful article that we started at the
Speaker 1: top of the show from the BBC a k a.
Speaker 1: The b Painless Parker, part dentist, part showman, all American,
Speaker 1: and you can see a wonderful image of that tooth
Speaker 1: necklace and it is absolutely uh maccab And this article
Speaker 1: is James Bartlett kind of talking through the legacy of
Speaker 1: Painless Parker, and it's an excellent read. But he basically
Speaker 1: just ups the anti on the smaller kind of medicine
Speaker 1: show that he was doing before. I get he must
Speaker 1: have gotten some investment. I mean, I think he had
Speaker 1: had some success up to this point, so maybe he
Speaker 1: had some money squirrelled away. But um, it seems like
Speaker 1: he really did take it up to the next level,
Speaker 1: like you said, adding acrobats and magicians even and uh
Speaker 1: and live animals. I mean, this really was like a
Speaker 1: traveling circus and it made a ton of money, an
Speaker 1: absolute mint uh and and really paved the way for
Speaker 1: what would ultimately become a dental empire for Painless Parker.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, empire is not a hyperball phrase to use there,
Speaker 1: because he was the first person to do this successfully,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't the only one. There were other people
Speaker 1: who would follow in his path. They would try to,
Speaker 1: you know, they would try to have a little bit
Speaker 1: of theater and spectacle to get people into their doors.
Speaker 1: But because he was the first, he was also the
Speaker 1: most famous, and he didn't get a lot of This
Speaker 1: did not make him the bell of the dental community ball,
Speaker 1: but this did bring him a lot of money. And
Speaker 1: as Michael Pollock points out righting for The New York Times,
Speaker 1: he had the he he had all these kind of corny,
Speaker 1: highly illiteratetive phrases, these slogans that people really love proclaimed
Speaker 1: by popular pressing pulpit paying this part of his positively
Speaker 1: perfect I've noticed how he had pulpit thrown in there.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that was a reference back to his old,
Speaker 1: his old Bible thumping days. It makes it sound like
Speaker 1: there's a preacher who uh is everybody comes in on there,
Speaker 1: you know, in church and some Sunday and this guy
Speaker 1: stops for a second and says like, today's sermon is
Speaker 1: brought to you by painless Parker exactly. Oh and dude,
Speaker 1: I mean this building. It really is in the New
Speaker 1: York Times article you mentioned Ben this building. It's it's
Speaker 1: a huge building by the way um in in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: And there is an image on the article courtesy of
Speaker 1: the Museum of the City of New York. That shows
Speaker 1: the slogans that he just had all over the building,
Speaker 1: like covering every flat kind of like paintable surface, and
Speaker 1: at the top it says, I am positively it and
Speaker 1: the it is like three stories tall in painless dentistry.
Speaker 1: And apparently he would I mean his showmanship when it
Speaker 1: came to like advertising for his practice. Really there was
Speaker 1: no um no and nothing you wouldn't do. There is
Speaker 1: no end to it. He you know, what what is it?
Speaker 1: Fly men or spiderman flies, human flies. They're kind of
Speaker 1: an old school thing. The dudes that would like kind
Speaker 1: of scale tall buildings in New York City or or
Speaker 1: you know, they're big city skyscrapers. And he would have
Speaker 1: those dudes like hire them out and have them scale
Speaker 1: his building, and particularly scale that it um which is
Speaker 1: the highest point of the building. It literally goes to
Speaker 1: the very very very tippy top. So he knew how
Speaker 1: to draw a crowd, that's for sure. There would yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be tight rope walkers that would have that
Speaker 1: would be you know, doing the typrope back, but they'd
Speaker 1: also be holding a sign like I'm going to payless
Speaker 1: barkers and this this is brilliant marketing. So customers also
Speaker 1: eventually fill up his new expanded office, that huge building.
Speaker 1: And so he gets a horse drawn kind of flatbed
Speaker 1: with a dentist chair for his traveling shows, and he
Speaker 1: keeps this bucket of teeth close at hands so he
Speaker 1: can show it to people, probably while he's still rocking
Speaker 1: that necklace. And over time we have to point out
Speaker 1: he deserves this to be pointed out. Over time, he
Speaker 1: has become a competent dentist, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: He was rushing there in the beginning, and it's not
Speaker 1: that's true, but he's become a competent dentist. And unfortunately
Speaker 1: his marketing and his pr has made people in the
Speaker 1: dentistry community and other communities always dismiss him as a
Speaker 1: flam and flam guy, a con man. But he is
Speaker 1: at this point a dentist who would be considered legit
Speaker 1: in his time. And he's also not even practically not
Speaker 1: even the one that's doing most of the work. He's
Speaker 1: got like a team now working under him. He's ten. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a brand name, exactly like a fifteen licensed dentists,
Speaker 1: many of whom you know. According to various accounts that
Speaker 1: we've read very much resented working for him because he
Speaker 1: represents sentered this thing that we've been talking about the
Speaker 1: whole time, this kind of bastardization of the noble profession
Speaker 1: of tooth plumbing. Right, But there there they were because
Speaker 1: he paid well and he was kind of the biggest
Speaker 1: game in town. So he essentially started in the Santa
Speaker 1: Cruz Sentinel article refers to it as assembly line dentistry.
Speaker 1: So he really does have like a system. They even
Speaker 1: had these like pulleys with like clothes lines where they'd
Speaker 1: send the receipts to the cashier, you know, like zip
Speaker 1: line it over to him. And by the early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: by undred particular, he had five branches throughout New York
Speaker 1: City and also in upstate New York, in Albany and
Speaker 1: in Troy, and all told, was making five grand a day.
Speaker 1: This deserves an inflation calculators. Uh yeah, that's some tuban
Speaker 1: throat singing lovers studied Max. Uh. Here's the result, folks,
Speaker 1: five thou and dollars in nineteen hundred would be worth
Speaker 1: one sixty thousand, two hundred thirty five dollars and twelve
Speaker 1: cents today. That is a ton of money to be
Speaker 1: making every single day. Uh. This this goes on for
Speaker 1: a while and it's you know, it's successful, and the
Speaker 1: Beabs by the way is still is still very much
Speaker 1: in the mix until nineteen o four he passes away,
Speaker 1: and then a few weeks later Parker himself contracts typhoid.
Speaker 1: And at this point we have to ask ourselves, and
Speaker 1: this is purely speculation, but we have to ask ourselves
Speaker 1: whether Parker felt he had sacrificed financial success for professional reputation,
Speaker 1: because you can get a sense of how severely people
Speaker 1: dislike him like as as Pollock points out, there's a
Speaker 1: nineteen article from Hampton's magazine that describes his the Painless
Speaker 1: Parker Building. Lastly, at the junction of Flatbush Avenue and
Speaker 1: Pacific Street is a gigantic brownstone building the fronts Brooklyn's
Speaker 1: busiest square. This building, emblazoned with blue signs, is a
Speaker 1: monument to the colossal and blatant self puffery of the
Speaker 1: most notorious of all the swindling tooth tinkers. It is
Speaker 1: the original headquarters of the most conceited Charlatan that dental
Speaker 1: quackery has ever known, The Citadel of painless Parker, the
Speaker 1: drum cord dentist, The drum cords dentist. Wow, harsh, bro harsh.
Speaker 1: And this is so this is published five years after
Speaker 1: he's sold his stake in the business, high tailed it
Speaker 1: to l A with his family to retire and get
Speaker 1: this the ripe old age of thirty five. You lucky,
Speaker 1: so ago l I mean, I guess you know, in
Speaker 1: the same way that inflation calculators work. That sort of
Speaker 1: works for age two five in nineteen ten would have
Speaker 1: been more like probably fifty in terms of life expected
Speaker 1: seat today maybe not, I don't know, but it is funny.
Speaker 1: He definitely made a mint and was able to to,
Speaker 1: you know, take off to l A. But the showman's
Speaker 1: you know, you can take the man out of the show,
Speaker 1: but you can't take the show out of the man,
Speaker 1: can you, Ben, You can't do it. He got the
Speaker 1: itch and realized that there was a market to be
Speaker 1: cornered in on the West coast for circus dentistry. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this actually this kind of sounds fun. Uh. So you
Speaker 1: go to Santa Cruz and you you would see a
Speaker 1: parade in the morning, then a show, a series of
Speaker 1: shows in intent that was kind of a hybrid of
Speaker 1: circus acts, but then also featured Parker coming out and
Speaker 1: telling you how to have good dental hygiene and then saying,
Speaker 1: by the way, anybody got a sort tooth? Because I'm
Speaker 1: right here, we got the I got the bucket. You
Speaker 1: can see the necklace. This is what I do. Uh,
Speaker 1: it works again. He's onto something. He's got another empire started,
Speaker 1: or a franchise. At least he's got what five five
Speaker 1: different offices and five different towns. And Ben, you make
Speaker 1: a really good point. You know, he is giving lectures
Speaker 1: on dental hygiene, which is pretty forward thinking, despite you know,
Speaker 1: his reputation as being a charlatan. I mean, he did
Speaker 1: seemingly have a bit of a head start on this
Speaker 1: thing that we think of now is so important and
Speaker 1: honestly the most important part of dentistry. And Uh. In
Speaker 1: the BBC article that I mentioned, where you can see
Speaker 1: that fantastic image of the tooth necklace, there's an advertisement
Speaker 1: that says this fixed teeth stay fixed longer when kept
Speaker 1: clean with painless Parker tooth powder or paste, the product
Speaker 1: of fifty years experience. Wait a minute, but he is
Speaker 1: thirty five. I don't understand the product. Okay, so maybe
Speaker 1: there's just some Charlottean Are you going on the brought
Speaker 1: ut the fifty years experience? None better? Ask your druggist
Speaker 1: and Ben. You were just in Philly. You know you
Speaker 1: went to some museums, but I don't imagine you went
Speaker 1: to the Cornberg School of Dentistry museum, which sounds pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I love weird old medical tech, and I love I
Speaker 1: love old medical tech. I also love museums about very
Speaker 1: specific things. That's I don't know why, just like I
Speaker 1: love reference works about very specific things. This Philly has
Speaker 1: got some weird ones. They've got the Motor Museum, which
Speaker 1: I think is a lot of weird at taxidermy and
Speaker 1: like medical appliances. And there's a few other kind of
Speaker 1: very specific ones in Philly too. For some time I got,
Speaker 1: you know, I got lost in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Speaker 1: It's just wonderful. It's Laborntine too, so you can find
Speaker 1: so many amazing things. But yes, I will put this
Speaker 1: on my list for what I returned to Philly. Also,
Speaker 1: Parker is taking better care of himself at this point
Speaker 1: in his life. He stops drinking, he stopped smoking, and
Speaker 1: he's focusing on this showmanship. Eventually he says, you know,
Speaker 1: I need to pay I need to be more mindful
Speaker 1: of bacteria, right, and contamination. So I'm not gonna do
Speaker 1: these sidewalk demonstrations anymore. And he starts screening educational films
Speaker 1: about dental hygiene in his office, and people are always
Speaker 1: invited to come in for a free check up. But
Speaker 1: like like we said before, man, he's made some enemies
Speaker 1: because we we mentioned, especially in you know, those earlier times,
Speaker 1: his dental extractions often were not painless, right, and there
Speaker 1: were people who felt they had been swindled, they felt
Speaker 1: they had been sold a bill of goods, and other
Speaker 1: dentists were aware that there were angry patients. The American
Speaker 1: Dental Association even called him a menace to the dignity
Speaker 1: of the profession. Yeah, because Parker really had this kind
Speaker 1: of checkered legacy. Or on the one hand, he was
Speaker 1: seen as the charlatan and this kind of snake oil salesman.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, he definitely developed some techniques
Speaker 1: and some kind of forward thinking ways of looking at
Speaker 1: the dental hygiene right that that you know, kind of
Speaker 1: persists to this day. And also not to mention the
Speaker 1: idea of a precursor to novacaine that he kind of
Speaker 1: just invented, uh more or less. But the former dean
Speaker 1: of the Temple University, Maurice H. Kornberg School of Dentistry,
Speaker 1: Dr Ahmid Ishmael makes a really really good point that
Speaker 1: I think is one that is good to leave with today.
Speaker 1: Um that he quote serves as a warning to consumers
Speaker 1: even today. Scientific evidence must remain the foundation of clinical
Speaker 1: care in any health field, otherwise we will be victims
Speaker 1: to modern Charlottean's. So I think it's no accident that
Speaker 1: that museum we're talking about still has on display a
Speaker 1: bucket of teeth and that weird maccabre tooth necklace and
Speaker 1: keeps the memory of Painless Parker alive. And there are
Speaker 1: other aspects of this story, little facts here and there
Speaker 1: that give you even more of a sense of of
Speaker 1: Parker's life. He legally changed his first name to Painless,
Speaker 1: for example. His and his contributions are you know, undeniable,
Speaker 1: even though he could arguably be called a con artist
Speaker 1: at different times. Uh. I love the point that the
Speaker 1: dean makes there because it's it's an important one. And
Speaker 1: if you'd like to if you'd like to learn more
Speaker 1: about why this point is so important, I would recommend
Speaker 1: checking out our episode on Stuff they Don't Want You
Speaker 1: to Know, called Stuff they Don't Want You to Know
Speaker 1: goes to the Dentist. We found there's a lot of
Speaker 1: opportunity for bad actors when they have somebody in a
Speaker 1: vulnerable position like this with with the power and balance,
Speaker 1: because you know, the dentist knows what they are doing,
Speaker 1: but the patient doesn't really know what no what's going
Speaker 1: on in there totally. And the reason he changed his name,
Speaker 1: by the way, to Painless Parker was because of a
Speaker 1: new law that came about in California preventing dentist from
Speaker 1: practicing under anything but their real name, because they believed
Speaker 1: that Painless Parker was false advertising, not only because it
Speaker 1: was a pseudonym, because it promised painless um, you know,
Speaker 1: dental procedures. H So that's why he changed his name.
Speaker 1: But he was so very much part of the zeitgeist
Speaker 1: at the time that just a couple of years before
Speaker 1: he died in nineteen eight, Bob Hope played a character
Speaker 1: in a movie called Pale Face with Jane Mansfield named
Speaker 1: Peter painless Potter who is a kind of a Huxtery
Speaker 1: snake oil dentist um and Parker, you know, lived to
Speaker 1: see the picture and loved it apparently, and also it
Speaker 1: gave him a little more publicity, which you can't You
Speaker 1: can't buy publicity like that. No such thing as bad publicity.
Speaker 1: I bet Parker believed, he probably did. He probably did,
Speaker 1: but that's not a statement everybody agrees with. We also
Speaker 1: want to give a shout out to Michael D. Tola,
Speaker 1: who was himself a dentist, who helpefully points out that
Speaker 1: Parker was at one point in his career quote more
Speaker 1: famous than the president. M h, it's pretty crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you know, at least he didn't say it. He
Speaker 1: probably said it and then had somebody else he put
Speaker 1: a plant in the crowd. But did we mention that
Speaker 1: the dentists have a particularly unusually high rate of suicide,
Speaker 1: particularly in the medical community. There's a there's a couple
Speaker 1: of stats from success dot ader dot org. Apparently male
Speaker 1: dentists have the highest rate of suicide within the medical
Speaker 1: community at eight point two percent, and then female dentists
Speaker 1: of the fourth highest at five point to a doctor's
Speaker 1: seven point eight seven, pharmacists seven point one nine, nurses
Speaker 1: six point five six, But yeah, eight point two percent
Speaker 1: for for dentists. It's apparently a thing. And not to
Speaker 1: end on a down note, which we won't, but um,
Speaker 1: there's a really and if you want to explore this
Speaker 1: trend in any more depth, there's a great article on
Speaker 1: Vice our dentists really more prone to suicide by Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Brown and they quote a dentist saying when you're in
Speaker 1: a career where nobody wants to see you, and you're
Speaker 1: the last place they want to come back to, and
Speaker 1: it's depressing. Um, which is something that painless Parker I
Speaker 1: think was trying to, you know, turn on its head
Speaker 1: a bit right. Yeah, and this is a this is
Speaker 1: a statistic. Uh, you'll see bandied around in various forms
Speaker 1: of The doctor you quote makes a good point about this.
Speaker 1: I didn't include it in stuff they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know as episode on dentistry because we didn't you
Speaker 1: want to focus on the tragedy of suicide. There is
Speaker 1: some sand to that research. However, let's send on some
Speaker 1: maybe some weird, slightly fun slash gross dental facts. Did
Speaker 1: you know that there are people getting tattoos on their
Speaker 1: caps and crowns, tooth tattoos. They can't do it yet. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's okay, I guess that. That's so. I guess that
Speaker 1: sort of like, ah, maybe the equivalent of getting like
Speaker 1: a gold grill or like a diamond encrusted tooth or
Speaker 1: something like that of the vanity area of dentistry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so. I guess so. I've also seen this thing,
Speaker 1: or I've seen reports of this thing where people are
Speaker 1: getting their teeth like colored or decorated the way that
Speaker 1: you would fingernails, through some kind of some kind of process.
Speaker 1: It's not permanent, at least as far as I know.
Speaker 1: But here's a cool ice breaker you can throw out
Speaker 1: there next time you find yourself in the dentist's office. Uh.
Speaker 1: The average person, over the course of their life apparently
Speaker 1: spends thirty eight days total brushing their teeth. Well, hopefully
Speaker 1: all of us who have maybe let some of that
Speaker 1: dental upkeep fall by the wayside during COVID can look
Speaker 1: at that as a as an inspiration to change our ways. Ben,
Speaker 1: I want to end with one more fact, if you
Speaker 1: don't mind, Uh. The comical dental fact is that cotton
Speaker 1: candy was invented by a dentist. There the literal like
Speaker 1: bane of of dentistry was invented by a dentist. This
Speaker 1: dude named Dr William James Morrison, who uh mental flaws
Speaker 1: described as being a man at odds with himself because
Speaker 1: not only was he in the dental profession, he also
Speaker 1: had a sweet tooth and was sort of a fair
Speaker 1: uh you know, part time confectioner. Um. And while you know,
Speaker 1: what you would call candy floss has been used for
Speaker 1: generations in various cultures. Um, what we would think of
Speaker 1: as the type of machine spun sugar cotton candy was
Speaker 1: in fact debut at the nineteen four World's Fair by
Speaker 1: a dentist. Thanks so much for tuning in, folks, Hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this one thanks to our super producers Casey
Speaker 1: Pegram and the one and only Max Williams. Max, what's
Speaker 1: your We forgot to ask you at the top, what's
Speaker 1: your what's your take on dentist deal? Are you a
Speaker 1: are you an ardent fan of dentistry? So I have
Speaker 1: a story in the past where I went a little
Speaker 1: too long without going the dentist Like I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: say how many years it was on Eric's Is that bad?
Speaker 1: But uh, no dentist, they're uh, they're fine people. I
Speaker 1: don't like them, but they do an important job. Well,
Speaker 1: you you mean you don't like having to go to
Speaker 1: the dentist. You're not saying like when you find out
Speaker 1: a friend is a dentist, you're like, oh, forget it.
Speaker 1: This is oh no, no, no, I am saying that best.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much to Jonathan Strickland's a k a. The Wister,
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to Gabe Bluesier, research associate. Uh and
Speaker 1: thanks to all the dentists out there. You're doing good,
Speaker 1: profound uh and often thankless work. And you know, in addition,
Speaker 1: the people who get ignored often thanks to the dentistry
Speaker 1: assistance thanks to the hygenis. Thanks to everybody who makes
Speaker 1: good teeth possible, including including you, folks. Let's all remember
Speaker 1: to brush. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.