'Monty, Bring the Blood Can!' Pulling Teeth in Working-Class Lancashire, 1900-48.

Abstract

Working-class health cultures before the National Health Service have long been of scholarly interest but those related to oral health are chronically underexamined. This article examines one important aspect of this history-tooth pulling-in early twentieth-century Lancashire. By highlighting the dynamics of market supply and demand, it demonstrates how and why the tooth pulling services of non-orthodox practitioners called dental mechanics remained popular despite the increasing monopolization of oral health by dentists. Dentists characterized mechanics as quacks, but working-class Lancastrians sought out these mechanics because they formed a trusted part of their communities. This demonstration of a population's preference for unorthodox over orthodox practitioners provides a much-needed counter-narrative to professionalization in oral health and highlights the significance of geographically specific traditions over the values of medicine and science.