Throughout his professional life, Painless Parker - a self-promoting dental crusader & a patient advocate--sought to gain respectability from his profession. Instead, he was rejected by his colleagues because he used the unacceptable practice of advertising blatantly to the public. The ultraconservative Profession of Dentistry regarded Painless as an outlaw, a renegade, a fraud, a charlatan, a quack, a scoundrel, a thorn in their sides, & above all else--unprofessional. However, Painless may have been years ahead of his time. Parker's very active life, which spanned 80 years, can be divided into three periods: THE FORMATIVE YEARS in the Canadian Maritimes, where his youthful experiences prepared him for his destiny; THE INTERVENING YEARS on the East Coast of the United States, where his revolutionary ideas, ways & circus methods for dental advertising & unconventional practice were developed & refined; & his LATTER YEARS ON THE PACIFIC COAST, where the region's fertile & easygoing lifestyle facilitated his establishment of 37 dental offices & tolerated his flamboyant manner of advertising. This book tells Painless' story as he wanted it told--from his perspective, using many of his own words & aphorisms. To order: Dr. Arden G. Christen, D.D.S., M.S.D., M.A., Indiana University School of Dentistry, 1121 W. Michigan St., Room B-19, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5186 or (317) 274-3859. Price $24.95 plus shipping.

An “entertaining history” of the practice of dentistry that will remind you how lucky you are to live in the modern era (Publishers Weekly). For those on both sides of the dreaded dentist’s chair, James Wynbrandt has written a witty, colorful, and richly informative history of the art and science of dentistry. To all of those dental patients whose whine rises in tandem with that of the drill, take note: You would do well to stifle your terror and instead offer thanks to Apollonia, the patron saint of toothache sufferers, that you face only fleeting discomfort rather than the disfiguring distress or slow agonizing death oft meted out by dental-care providers of the past. The transition from yesterday’s ignorance, misapprehension, and superstition to the enlightened and nerve-deadened protocols of today has been a long, slow, and very painful process—as shown by such facts as: *Among the toothache remedies favored by Pierre Fauchard, the father of dentistry, was rinsing the mouth liberally with one’s own urine. *George Washington never had wooden teeth. However, his chronic dental problems may have impacted the outcome of the American Revolution. *Soldiers in the Civil War needed at least two opposing front teeth to rip open powder envelopes. Some men had their front teeth extracted to avoid service. *Teeth were harvested from as many as fifty thousand corpses after the Battle of Waterloo, a huge crop later used for dentures and transplants that became known as “Waterloo Teeth.” “You’ll gain a great deal of dental knowledge, acquired quite painlessly.” —The New York Times Book Review “Just the thing you need to get through your next oral probing.” —Entertainment Weekly “A breezy romp . . . While sensitive dentists may wince at having their profession’s rough-and-tumble past revealed, dental patients are more likely to feel relief at having been born in the modern era of dentistry. Both groups are in for a good laugh.” —Kirkus Reviews

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JAMES FELTON'S "ASSHOLES" IS OUT NOW With his trademark brand of bulldozer-banter, Twitter legend James Felton guides you through the most morbidly fascinating facts you'll then wish you could forget. Ever wondered why the chainsaw was invented?* How authorities dealt with a beached whale back in ye olde days of 1970?** Or what being a human decanter entails?*** Then you've come to the right place! Within these pages you'll find the maddest, strangest and downright grossest stories from history, nature and science that you don't want to know. (Except secretly you really do you masochistic, beastly person you.) Illustrated, painfully funny and drop-your-jaw ridiculous, this is trivia from the cesspit of time that you won't be able to stop reading once you start. *To aid childbirth. **They exploded it with 100 times too much dynamite and rained blubber down on unsuspecting people and buildings. ***Decency prevents us from answering this one here. You'll have to buy the book to find out.