Judge, 1918-04-27 · page 15 of 36
Judge — April 27, 1918 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This 1920s *Judge* magazine page presents two satirical pieces: **Main Article: "One Reason Why We Have Teeth"** by Dox Herold uses exaggerated first-person humor. The author describes visiting a dentist as his primary entertainment—essentially playing a cat-and-mouse game where he deliberately dodges the drill, engages in playful combat, and admits to murdering a dentist who took the work seriously rather than treating it as sport. The satire mocks both the author's boredom-driven desperation for excitement and the adversarial dynamic some people have with dental care. The illustration shows a patient and dentist in animated conflict. **Sidebar: "His Knowledge"** is a brief joke about rural mispronunciation. A boy asks his father what "psychological moment" means; the father misunderstands it as "pizzyological" and defines it as "the time to shoot"—implying trigger-happy frontier mentality. The humor targets rural/uneducated speech patterns. The bottom illustration shows figures in motion, possibly related to spring activities. Both pieces trade in early 20th-century class-based humor targeting rural Americans and mock-heroic exaggeration.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
a good, agile dentist. I like them agile. From the minute I step into the chair, I feel stimulated. First the gentle pias ot the keen little drill fills me with anticipation for You have onthe something really worth whole, avery while. Then the sharp Cine set shooting gouges—ah! I 1 dodge a little, to put the dentist on the alert; then I advance slightly for more—and get it. I re- treat again, and the den- tist, catching the spirit of the chase, pursues me. But I eventually evade him. et me know if it is sensitive,” the dentist says soothingly. “Tam here to look after my own interests,” I assure him, to let him know that he has an adversary worthy of his steel. Nearer and nearer he comes to the nerve. It is the first time, perhaps for weeks, that anything has been intensely interesting. Nearer, and nearer. If I am in fine fettle, perhaps I decide to let him drill a little longer on the tooth than he ever drilled, without stop- ping, on the same tooth of any patient he ever had in his chair. Or perhaps I dodge, out of mere whim, when there is really no need for dodging; that is, if] am ina playful mood. Finally he really gets down further than he has any business to go, and I start in earnest to parry his blows. I always leave it to my own judgment to decide when I have had enough violence at the hands of a dentist. I give one last slide to let him know that One Reason Why We Have Teeth By Don HEro.p Illuminated by Tur AutHor HEN I find life unbearably dull, I rush to the dentist’s. There is nothing that stirs me up so satisfactorily as an hour or so with I have decided we shall quit the particular phase of the game we are playing. Then he says: “Miss White, will you please mix a little asphalt Then comes the comforting tamping and jamming with which the tooth again becomes practical. For teeth must be practical as : well as entertaining. T am not particu- Or when my spirits are unusually low, and I > larly Interested feel the need of a jolt, In Ihy teeth— there is always some tooth aS teeth or other I can persuade some dentist to pull. After writing this, I know I shall have to go to the dentist’s under an as- sumed name, for (after this braggadocio) every dentist in the United States will be saving up Herald for me. However, I might re- mark that I found it neces- sary to kill one dentist—one in whom there was not a bit of sporting blood. He did not play the game at all. He thought his one duty was to fix my teeth. I slew him with one of his own knitting needles, and have never had a pang of conscience about it. And I expect to slay others. I can’t say offhand how many. Much as I enjoy them, I intend always to keep the upper hand over dentists. > His Knowledge “DAW,” asked young Braxton Bragg Johnson, a studious lad and one of the several sons of Mr. Gap Johnson, of Rum- pus Ridge, Ark., “what does ‘the p-s-y-c-h-o-l-o-g-i-c-a-] mo- ment’ mean, and how do you pronounce it?” “Aw, it’s pronounced ‘pizzyological,’” was the reply. “and means the time to shoot.” Drawn by Acxes Lee Sprinc Has Came! comicbooks.com