Visiting the dentist in old-time Phoenix


Since I will be going to the dentist for a crown tomorrow, I've been pondering what going to the dentist would have been like in old-time Phoenix. I found an article at the Library of Congress about a Phoenix dentist named Dr. Morrison, and he seems to compare with the place I'm going to tomorrow, very modern and progressive. The pic at the top of this post is from his office, and I'll do a link at the bottom of this article if you want to read the whole thing.

Looks like he used the Scientific Sanitary System. I like the sound of that. Kind of makes the other dentists seem as if they weren't using any kind of system at all, and not scientific, and not sanitary. Of course in 1915 there wasn't any regulation of advertising, which is what the article in the paper is after all, so you have to realize that they could say just about anything.


Like the place that I'll be at tomorrow in Glendale, it looks like Dr. Morrison was very proud of the modern equipment. I don't know enough about dental stuff to recognize anything in the picture, and besides the pdf scan is kinda blurry. But the point is that there was a lot of state-of-the-art equipment there!

Speaking for myself, I'm very squeamish. I'm one of those typical tough guys who gets light-headed around needles, and I don't like to think too much about cavities, and gum disease, and stuff like that. I trust my dentist, and I think that I would have trusted my dentist in 1915.


And here's the link to the whole 1915 article if you're interested: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/batches/az_jojoba_ver01/data/sn84020558/00202195507/1918110301/0014.pdf

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