Page:Intrepid & daring adventures of sixteen British seamen.pdf/22

22 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. EvcnEven [sic] the air could not be taken!--it was too much for the petulance of my capricious tooth. On it raged, as if tormcntstorments [sic] were its delight. In all my reading, I never met with any author but Burns who had a proper idcaidea [sic] of the toothach. He wished his enemies to have it for a twelvemonth. Oh dear! He must be more or lcssless [sic] than man who could endure this. He must dcspairdespair [sic] and perish.

How true it is, that out of evil oftcnoften [sic] some good will spring; for while I was enduring this thumbscrew on my gums—this gout in my jaw—this rack of nerves--this dcstroyerdetroyer [sic] of brains--amid this desolation I acquired much useful information rcspectingrespecting [sic] the toothach. One fricndfriend [sic] informed me that half the suffering was occasioned by nervous irritability; for, if I went to a dentist with a detcrminationdetermination [sic] to have the tooth extracted, the momcntmoment [sic] I entercdentered [sic] the door the tooth would cease to give me pain. He had provcdproved [sic] it more than once.

Another friend requested me to bcbe [sic] careful in selecting an opcratoroperator [sic] 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 propcrlyproperly [sic] arranged, the instrument in, and a tooth drawn;