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The 1940s Pill Designed To Make Dentist Visits Fun
A supposed medical breakthrough wasn’t actually all that new, but also turned out to not be appropriate for its new use
Human knowledge of medicine and treating our minds and bodies has expanded exponentially over time — with no greater growth occurring than what has happened over the past century. There have been numerous discoveries on how to best treat all manner of afflictions. Unfortunately, one idea from the 1940s was decidedly not one of them. This was a pill designed to take fear out of going to the dentist, and instead make it a pleasurable experience.
Going to the dentist is a necessary part of life that not everyone finds to be very fun. A 1948 news article reported how two dentists in the Los Angeles area went public with a pill they had designed to take the scary out of their patients and replace it with the merry.
Drs. Milton Levine and Robert Hoyt were practicing at the White Memorial Hospital’s experimental medicine department and announced their findings related to making dental appointments more palatable. They developed a pill they claimed not only eliminated fear while visiting a dentist, but also significantly lessened pain related to some procedures. According to the article, which appeared in the March 13…
