A Dentist's Shop is Fitted Up

Anesthesia has been effectively used for surgical procedures for the past 150 years as a means of easing the pain suffered by patients.  Recipes for home remedy anesthesia often included medicinal herbs such as mulberry, hellebore, dittany, and hops.  In 1831 the Canterbury Shakers established a business for selling herbs and seeds, including those used for medicinal purposes, under the leadership of Brother Thomas Corbett. 

In this 1854 Canterbury Shaker Village catalog, Trustee James Kaime lists approximately 65 medicinal plants.  Hellebore, bitter sweet, foxglove, poppy, mandrake, nightshade, pleurisy root, silk weed, and valerian were all grown by the Shakers for their power of easing pain and/or procuring sleep.

Dentists often experimented with nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide to relieve headaches and toothaches during the turn of the 19th century.  Yet it wasn't until 1844 when a Hartford, CT, dentist named Horace Wells met with a laughing gas traveling showman that nitrous oxide anesthesia was born.  Soon dentists were also experimenting with ether, which became the preferred type of anesthesia.  Ether, advantageously, was easy to store in bottles and easy to administer to patients.

It is unclear how general anesthesia was administered by or to the Shakers during the 19th century.  By the turn of the 20th century members of the community were often cared for by visiting physicians and nurses or traveled to Concord area dentists such as Dr. C.R. Morton, Dr. F.C. Rowe, and in the late 20th century Dr. Robert O. Wilson.  Eldress Josephine Wilson's diary entries from the 1920s report many trips to Concord for dentistry visits but do not elaborate on the reasons for visiting aside from a few entries.

   (close-up)

When the Infirmary building at the Village was inventoried by the museum in the early 1980s, curatorial staff found medical artifacts that hint to anesthesia use including ether bottles and this anesthesiatic machine. 

This Sorenson ether-suction anesthesia machine (c.1925) was commonly marketed for use in dentistry as were the small spray bottles in stand seen here.  Bottles of this kind could be used to apply local anesthetics. 

Captions:

1. Stereoview, "An' its me tooth! God bless you doctor dear!". c1901. Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.
2. Ether bottle covered in cloth and stored inside a Squibbs ether box.  Canterbury Shaker Village Collection, #1984.273.1a-b
3. Sorenson ether-suction anesthesia machine.  Canterbury Shaker Village collection, #1984.1447.1