powder, and inserting this into the man's mouth, rubbed it on the
aching tooth and gum. He repeated this three or four times, and then
concluded by turning the patient's head upside down; when, to the no
small astonishment of many of the bystanders, among whom was
apparently the man himself, the tooth dropped out and fell upon the
ground. The doctor then asked him if he had felt any pain, to which he
replied that he had not, and the payment of a small fee brought the
_seance_ to a close. At our application the tooth was picked up and
very civilly exhibited to us by the owner himself; it was evidently
fresh from a human jaw, though there had not been the slightest
effusion of blood from the man's mouth. The thought had naturally
suggested itself to us that the whole thing was a hoax, and that the
patient was an accomplice; but if so, the doctor was no novice at
sleight of hand, and the expression of astonishment on the other man's
face when he found his tooth gone, was as perfect a specimen of
histrionic emotion as it has ever been our lot to behold.

That night we had visions of a large establishment in Regent Street,
with an enormous placard announcing "Painless Dentistry" over the
door, and crowds of dukes and duchesses mounting and descending our
stairs to have their teeth extracted by some mysterious process
imported from China, and known to ourselves alone. Next day we
proceeded to rummage through our Chinese medical library and see what
we could hunt up on the subject of dentistry. The result of this
search we generously offer to our readers, thus, perhaps, sacrificing
the chance of securing a colossal fortune.

In the "New Collection of Tried Prescriptions," a sort of domestic
medicine published for the use of families in cases of emergency when
no physician is at hand, we find the following remarks:--