by Laurent d’Entremont
Had I not accepted to be one of the judges at a Tri County Heritage Fair students had at the Nova Scotia Community College in Yarmouth I never would have learned the story of Painless Parker.
One young lady from Digby County had, as her assignment, the biography, adventures and life’s work of Painless Parker (1871 to 1951) who had roots in the Maritimes. This student told me her father was a dentist, hence the interest on this topic.
All the displays were very historical and interesting, just to mention a few: The house of Maud Lewis, a very good replica and the story well documented by two cute young girls from Digby County. The history of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was well presented by the granddaughter of an RCMP. There was the story of Laura Secord, her heroic life documented, including the chocolate, which was named in her honour.
Some of the other exhibits had to do with log rolling in Nova Scotia, the Halifax Explosion, the history of South Ohio, and much, much more, too numerous to list here.
All the displays would have been worthy of a feature but I chose Painless Parker for various reasons, but mostly because I had never heard of him before. Painless Parker was a flamboyant self-promoting salesman and huckster who sold dentistry and dental care to the poor, while at the same time making sure he would never be poor himself. He was a showman, often hiring bands to entertain while he pulled teeth “painlessly.”
Edgar Randolph Parker was born in 1871, in Tynemouth Creek, N.B., not too far from the Saint John and Hampton area.
Young Edgar was the enterprising type. At nine years old he tried chicken farming with one setting hen and 13 eggs bought from a neighbour. Later he tried his hand as a salesman by selling dulse, a type of edible seaweed. At 10, he tried to fly by launching himself from the roof of the barn, luckily a fresh pile of manure broke his fall.
At 18, Parker enrolled at the Philadelphia Dental School and this was the start of his life-altering career as a dentist. Two years later he graduated with a DDS degree. Returning to New Brunswick Edgar Parker set up shop in his hometown, but there were other dentists nearby and he only had one patient in the first 90 days, this was no way to run a business.
While the dental college had taught dignity in dealing with this profession, Edgar soon learned that dignity did not pay many bills. He needed a gimmick. Calling himself “Painless Parker” he decided to become the “P.T. Barnum of dentistry” and moved to the United States. He even hired one of Barnum’s ex-managers to teach him the ropes of putting a show on the road.
The first thing they did was to buy a horse and wagon and install a dentist chair in the bed of this “travelling office.” Patients would not have to go to him, he would bring his practice to them. Next as a true entertainer, he hired showgirls who would sing and dance to the sounds of a band blasting away. In the middle of this entourage was Painless Parker dressed in his trademark spotless white coat, sporting his grey beaver top hat. Needless to say, this would draw a crowd, and Parker would boast of pulling teeth the “painless way,” even going as far as offering $5 to the patient if he felt any pain.
The band and showgirls distracted the patient, the noise would silence any painful noise coming from the patient, and of course it promoted his business. Parker used what he called “Hydrocaine” as a painkiller, but sometimes a generous cup of whisky worked much better. The business flourished and in later years Painless Parker boasted to having extracted 375 teeth in one day, he kept the bucket full of teeth as proof of this.
Other dentists accused him of false advertising and he was ordered to stop advertising as “Painless Parker,” but Parker answered to this issue by legally changing his first name to … you guessed it … “Painless.” In his life’s work, Edgar Parker succeeded beyond his wildest dream. At one time he owned over two-dozen dental offices and was employing over 70 dentists, making him a very wealthy dentist. The Maritime boy from small town New Brunswick had succeeded very well, but it would not be fair to say that he did it all painlessly.
