"Michael Chare" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 20/04/2015 14:06, Chris Hogg wrote:


In WW2, my late father was the medical officer on a naval aircraft
transport vessel (HMS Athena), and somewhere in the middle of the
Indian ocean he developed an abscess under a tooth, with accompanying
extreme tooth-ache. He was the only person on board remotely qualified
to deal with it, and although he asked if anyone else would extract it
for him, he got no volunteers. Eventually he had to extract it
himself, apparently with the aid of several shots of whisky, there
being no local anesthetics in those days.


The story WW2 story I was told was about a Captain who did not want to
hand over command of his ship whilst he was being anaesthetized, so he
told the dentist to take the tooth out whilst he was conscious.

I've just had a couple extracted without being anaesthetized, just a local.