In addition to the other disabilities, toothache is undignified; there is nothing interesting or romantic about it! It is one of the first pains impartial nature bestows on her children, and which is the only common heritage that justifies that misleading clause in the American Constitution that all men are born free and equal. That pain and what was in our childhood euphoniously called "tummy ache" lead the revolt in nurseries.
There is hardly a bodily ache which literature has not idealised, but an aching tooth has yet to find its dramatic poet. In fact, there is about it a touch of the ludicrous which its concentrated anguish does not justify. It is curious that so intense a suffering should be so undramatic, but it is the one agony which does not desert us this side of the grave, and which even the genius of a Shakespeare would hesitate to bestow on his hero or heroine. Anguish comes to them in many ways, but the great poet discreetly avoids teeth.
The only historical reference to teeth I have ever noticed is when the sacred Inquisition, always original and playful, tears them one by one out of the mouths of heretics and Jews as being gently conducive to confession. But even this undoubted torture is singularly undramatic, and has, I believe, never been used by a tragic poet.
It is one of the aggravations of toothache that it inspires but lukewarm sympathy; even your parents know you will not die of it. The greatest concession to your suffering is that you may stay away from school, and, if you are very bad, mother ties a big handkerchief about your face, which is something, but not much. But even parents are strangely inconsiderate, and I realised even in my infant days that had these same sufferings been situated more favourably in my body I should have been promoted to bed and the family doctor.
A very famous American dentist met the English husband of an American friend of mine with the genial congratulation, "My dear sir, I wish you joy! You have married a first-rate, A1 set of teeth."
Possibly the tribute was too professional, but it really meant so much. Indeed, one of the most promising signs of the future of the American people is the importance they attach to good teeth. The American dentist is the greatest in the world. His deft skill constructs those delicate and complicated instruments that help him to repair the ravages of time and ill-health. Not only does he produce an exact copy of nature, but his is the only instance known to science where human ingenuity excels nature's--his teeth do not ache! It is also required of the modern dentist not only that he should be a consummate mechanic, but he must be a doctor and surgeon as well, to be able to cure the cause behind the damage.