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their powers, and I was in a paroxysm of excruciating anguish. It was astonishing how persons could calmly behold such a complication of miserics. Nothing could be eaten; slops became offensive; the sight of a spoon frightful; and a basin revolting to a perpetual blister. Evcn the air could not be taken!--it was too much for the petulance of my capricious tooth. On it raged, as if tormcnts were its delight. In all my reading, I never met with any author but Burns who had a proper idca of the toothach. He wished his enemies to have it for a twelvemonth. Oh dear! He must be more or lcss than man who could endure this. He must dcspair and perish.
How true it is, that out of evil oftcn some good will spring; for while I was enduring this thumbscrew on my gums—this gout in my jaw—this rack of nerves--this dcstroyer of brains--amid this desolation I acquired much useful information rcspecting the toothach. One fricnd informed me that half the suffering was occasioned by nervous irritability; for, if I went to a dentist with a detcrmination to have the tooth extracted, the momcnt I entercd the door the tooth would cease to give me pain. He had provcd it more than once.
Another friend requested me to bc careful in selecting an opcrator on my tooth, for that he went to a dentist once, under anguish scarcely endurable, to have a large double tooth like mine extracted. He seated himself in a chair, and was told to hold fast by the frame-work of the seat, to prevent being hoisted up by the lever power in the hands of the operator. All was propcrly arranged, the instrument in, and a tooth drawn;
