Readers who might chiefly employ these Pages as a Catch All for their falling Molars and Incisors will not register any particular Surprise at the News that Tooth Loss amongst the Publick has exceed’d last Year’s Record by nearly Four Fold. Barbers and Black Smiths speak of a Wind Fall of Patients seeking a ready Demise to their oral Agonies, though some Decay is so advanced, that a Brawny Soul need only take a Patient by the Heels, raise him aloft, and shake him vigorously, so that the Teeth may slip easily from the Gum. The Common of Boston is fairly festooned with Caries and has grown slick with the Gore borne of Abcesses, yet many Bostonians take the Inconvenience in jovial Stride, and even claim the Malady to be serendipitous, as missing Teeth tend to distract from Scars left from the Small Pox.
Wise Men do not ascribe the Tooth Loss to just one Cause, and instead point to such Divers Factors as the excessive Ingestion of Marchpane, Brawls, Maggots, Gravity, Theft, and the General Effects of Aging beyond eleven&Ω Years. They recommend all Forswearing of the Above, in addition to a daily Burnishing of the Teeth with a Physick compris’d of Whisky and Brick Dust.
