“Painless Parker” Reimagined: A New Era of Comfortable Dentistry
The ghost of our notorious 1900’s charlatan of Dentistry, Edger R. R. Parker, aka “Painless Parker”, has come back in the guise of multiple “Morgan and Morgan type advertisements “for the people” searching for Dentists. Corporations buying out dental practices spend fortunes marketing persuasive enticements to the public. Advertising, or as its inoffensive (PC) ” Marketing” name disguises, was unethical and punishable by fines and loss of license up until the late 1970 when challenged and defeated by constitutional attorneys. A 2-inch lettering on one door sign was all that was allowable. My indoctrination into Dentistry was that advertising was a big no no! I still have a problem with truth in advertising.
Parker had newspaper ads, billboards and 10-foot signs hung everywhere. The uncontrollable hype of Barnum and Baily’s Circus culture begam to flourish in Dentistry with the wisdom of Barnum’s discovery that the public enjoys being deceived and low prices affordable for the poor and working class were the secret to wealth. Think Walmart. St. Petersburg’s original Doc Webb with his Webb’s City, “The World’s Most Unusual Drug Store” was way ahead of his time mirroring the advertising and antics of Parker.
Parker’s horse drawn tooth mobile, surrounded by acrobats and a circus band, traveled the streets of New York, pulling teeth for 50 cents/tooth, guaranteeing no pain or a $5 refund. (He never refunded). After a sermon on dental hygiene, his patients were first anesthetized by his injection of cocaine diluted with water (hydro cocaine), a powerful narcotic supplemented with whiskey and a signal to the band to play louder to hide any moans if a patient cried out. His agent and promoter, Bebee told him that “one day all health professionals will be advertising, you are in show business and ahead of your time”. How true was his prophecy!
With that as a background, “painless” is dentistry’s Midas touch and every dentist needs to be as painless as possible and as a rule orthodontic treatment is not painful until sometime later at home and even that varies greatly. I have just initiated a new office procedure “guaranteed” to eliminate any kind of dental pain called Synapse” pain eraser”. Google it for more information. It is a pen sized wand sending electrical wave lengths into any sensitive tooth or painful area of the mouth. For $80 added to the total fee the take home disposable version gives you over a year’s use when needed, eventually the battery runs out. At the office we have our unit always ready for any appointment that might elicit discomfort hours later. You should be pain free for 48 hours. So, whether you want an at home version or just glad we have an office version ready for you at any time, the pain erasure applied to the tooth or irritated gum area for 20 seconds or more becomes numb and you are comfortable.
We hope this new technology will benefit your experience with braces and any oral discomfort, helping us be the “Painless Parkers” of 2025, without the acrobats, blaring band, billboards, TV ads and horse drawn tooth mobile clopping along the streets of St. Petersburg. We want to eliminate dental pain without Cocaine and Whisky, Advil and Tylenol. How about you?
John B. Harrison DDS,MSc
