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Teeth Extraction As Cure For Insanity (Dr. Henry Cotton)

Wolstan Dixie

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I know someone who was committed to a large County Mental Hospital in Britain in 1957. He say the inmates greatest fear was NOT Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) but having all their teeth forcibly extracted. The Director, Dr Sykes, believed he could cure insanity by extracting all your teeth - and he instigated a large programme to de-teeth all the inmates. Fortunately he retired just before my informant arrived, so he escaped this fate, but practically all the inmates he met had no teeth.

Was this just an aberrant crank idea by an autocratic psychiatrist, or was it an accepted psychiatric theory?
 
I have actually heard about this, forgot where it was, bloody appalling it is, I know when they hurt you want to rip them out, drives you crazy, but it only takes an educated nut job to take you seriously
 
Henry Cotton - medical director of New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton ...

He and his staff practiced experimental surgical bacteriology on patients, including the routine removal of some or all of patients' teeth, their tonsils, and frequently spleens, colons, ovaries, and other organs. These practices continued long after careful statistical reviews falsified Cotton's claims of extraordinarily high cure rates, and demonstrated very high mortality and morbidity as a result of these aggressive and dangerous measures.[2] After becoming medical director of Trenton State Hospital at the age of 30, Cotton instituted many progressive ideas. These included abolishing mechanical restraints and implementing meetings of daily staff to thrash out patient care.[3]

His enthusiasm for the scientific medicine that was taking hold at the opening of the 20th century led him to an unshakable belief that mental illness of all kinds was the result of untreated infections in the body. Based on the observation that patients with high fever often turn delusional or begin hallucinating, Meyer introduced the possibility of mental illness (then viewed as the cutting edge concept of scientific medicine) being a biological cause of behavioral abnormalities, in contrast to eugenic theories which emphasized heredity and to Freud's theories of childhood traumas. Cotton would become the leading practitioner of the new approach in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cotton_(doctor)
 
In addition to the Wikipedia artic.e, these reviews of works addressing Cotton:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...ness-treatment-from-the-knick-is-real/381751/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3641744/The-madness-of-a-cure-for-insanity.html

... describe the tragic outcomes of his works.

In what seems like something out of a Hammer film, Cotton would turn his techniques on his family and even himself.

This "focal infection therapy" seemed so scientific and promising that Cotton and his assistants yanked more than 11,000 teeth. He also removed those of his wife and children as a precautionary measure. (The Atlantic)

... {H}e believed in his own theory to such an extent that, as a prophylactic method, he extracted the teeth of two of his sons and even subjected one of them to a colectomy (both committed suicide as adults). Later, he had his own teeth extracted, believing focal sepsis to be the cause of his angina. (The Telegraph)
 
After having read this horrifying story (hitherto-unknown, by me) I did suddenly start to wonder as to whether the substantially-obsolete idiom "to cotton-on" about something (ie to become slowly and vaguely-aware of a given set of circumstances) was in any way associated with this eponymous doctor of disasterous dentistry.

Online definitions appear to state otherwise - https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/cotton-on.html - I still wonder if the tooth on this one s somewhere/somehow linked to this

ps "dental cotton" anyone? I shall now stop deflecting this thread
 
Not had a chance to look this but bear in mind full and partial teeth removal was still very common in 1957 Britain and as I recall most older adults that I grew up with in the 1970's had false teeth.

I can see it being pretty acceptable to have your teeth removed if it improved your mental health. Always good not to judge past things with modern eyes.
 
Fascinating - but how does a 1920's New Jesey crank theory get to a British mental hospital in the 1950's? Were other British hospitals doing it?
 
Not had a chance to look this but bear in mind full and partial teeth removal was still very common in 1957 Britain and as I recall most older adults that I grew up with in the 1970's had false teeth.

I can see it being pretty acceptable to have your teeth removed if it improved your mental health. Always good not to judge past things with modern eyes.

Both my Grandmothers had all their teeth removed when they were teenagers - they told me it was to make them a better prospect for marrying as the husband would not have the expense later on.
 
Both my Grandmothers had all their teeth removed when they were teenagers - they told me it was to make them a better prospect for marrying as the husband would not have the expense later on.

Yes, I've heard this too and to a slightly lesser extent see it. You had your teeth removed on your 18th birthday. I never got to ask my grandparents directly about it, but my grandmother had full false teeth as did my granddad.

Do you remember talking to them about it?

I'll ask my parents if they remember anything. Best ask surviving folks about this stuff or it's lost forever!
 
Fascinating - but how does a 1920's New Jesey crank theory get to a British mental hospital in the 1950's? ...

Cotton went 'way overboard with his procedures and seemed to be driven by dogmatism and overconfidence in the approach. However, his work represented the misguided extreme of a general orientation that was considered reasonable at the time - an orientation that presumed insanity was caused by something to do with physiological malaise.

Cotton wasn't the only one to suggest or suspect insanity may represent a symptom of infection in some sense. The notion that insanity was medically / biologically based was widely accepted at the time. Cotton was the one who took it most literally to imply the sort of infections known at the time. For example, the teeth-extraction bit began with teeth exhibiting caries (decay) based on the notion the bacterial infection had somehow affected the nearby brain.

Psychology at the time was little more than psychophysics and philosophical bullshitting. Therapeutic psychology / psychiatry was in its infancy. One must recall the medical / scientific community widely considered Freud's work to be voodoo pseudoscience then, just as it does our era's New Age beliefs and practices now.
 
Interestingly they now claim teeth infections causes Alzheimer's.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190603102549.htm
There seems to be a long standing belief that gum disease can contribute to heart disease and other life threatening ailments.
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/health-risks-of-gum-disease/ ...

Yep ... Both these items show that the basic idea of infection causing chronic problems up to and including psychological issues was valid to some extent.
 
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Sounds like pseudo-science to me - ordinary people can only have been brushing their teeth for 200 years - they must have had rotten teeth before that - OK their teeth hurt and fell out but they seem to have survived all this supposed brain damage perfectly well. And what about the undeveloped / developing rest of the world?
 
Yes, I've heard this too and to a slightly lesser extent see it. You had your teeth removed on your 18th birthday. I never got to ask my grandparents directly about it, but my grandmother had full false teeth as did my granddad.

Do you remember talking to them about it?

I'll ask my parents if they remember anything. Best ask surviving folks about this stuff or it's lost forever!

Yes - it fascinated me when I was a kid.
They would both do the flipping-dentures-out-with-their-tongue thing to keep us amused. I asked them both why they had it done and got the same reply regarding marriage prospects.
My paternal Grandmother had to have the dentist thump her under the jaw as it had locked after the prolonged operation.
My maternal Grandmother also had bees held to her cheeks so that the sting made them redder and her more attractive - she was the image of Pat Combes.
Sorry for going off topic.
 
My maternal Grandmother also had bees held to her cheeks so that the sting made them redder and her more attractive - she was the image of Pat Combes.
Sorry for going off topic.

What?.. This sounds so unlikely as to be a bit of leg-pulling. Where would she get this done - Boots the chemist, the local beekeeper, an s & m practitioner? Surely rouge would do the job without the pain.
 
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... My maternal Grandmother also had bees held to her cheeks so that the sting made them redder and her more attractive ...

I cannot locate any sources confirming this practice. A facial feature's expanded (swollen) and / or reddened appearance has been labeled a "bee-sting" look (e.g., the "bee-sting" lips motif popular in the 1920's). However, references to actually using bee stings to obtain such cosmetic effects elude me.
 
What?.. This sounds so unlikely as to be a bit of leg-pulling. Where would she get this done - Boots the chemist, the local beekeeper, an s & m practitioner? Surely rouge would do the job without the pain.

Not sure about Hobbs End but, around here, we have bees in our gardens.

I cannot locate any sources confirming this practice. A facial feature's expanded (swollen) and / or reddened appearance has been labeled a "bee-sting" look (e.g., the "bee-sting" lips motif popular in the 1920's). However, references to actually using bee stings to obtain such cosmetic effects elude me.

She also told me that her mother also used to voilently pinch her cheeks to make them red - presumably when there were no bees available. This was after I asked her why her cheeks had so make red lines on them (broken blood vessels?).
I would have been about 10 at the time.

Edit - I should mention - they were a rather crazy Belgian family
 
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Yes, I've heard this too and to a slightly lesser extent see it. You had your teeth removed on your 18th birthday. I never got to ask my grandparents directly about it, but my grandmother had full false teeth as did my granddad.

Do you remember talking to them about it?

I'll ask my parents if they remember anything. Best ask surviving folks about this stuff or it's lost forever!

My father and uncle had it done when they were both 18 , and my dad told me that the idea was to save on expensive dental bills or the pain of not being able to go, as no teeth meant no need for the dentist ever again. A very common practice, certainly in the working class East End where he grew up, and in a time before the NHS transformed healthcare.

I cannot locate any sources confirming this practice. A facial feature's expanded (swollen) and / or reddened appearance has been labeled a "bee-sting" look (e.g., the "bee-sting" lips motif popular in the 1920's). However, references to actually using bee stings to obtain such cosmetic effects elude me.

Not a live bee but I remember around twenty years ago being sent by my wife to a place off of Floral Street in Covent Garden to buy a lip plumper made with a bee venom extract - re-internet shopping I'd often nip out to all sorts of interesting places when away with work rather than just pick up parcels from the sorting office...
 
... She also told me that her mother also used to voilently pinch her cheeks to make them red - presumably when there were no bees available. ...

I've seen such cheek-pinching done for that purpose in old films.


... Not a live bee but I remember around twenty years ago being sent by my wife to a place off of Floral Street in Covent Garden to buy a lip plumper made with a bee venom extract ...

Bee venom was and is also used in creams or ointments for alleviating symptoms of rheumatism and arthritis, so it may well have been marketed for this purpose.
 
Not sure about Hobbs End but, around here, we have bees in our gardens.



She also told me that her mother also used to voilently pinch her cheeks to make them red - presumably when there were no bees available. This was after I asked her why her cheeks had so make red lines on them (broken blood vessels?).
I would have been about 10 at the time.

Edit - I should mention - they were a rather crazy Belgian family

So her parents caught the bees & did the deed - blimey. From your description it doesn't sound like it did her cheek condition much good.

Or she made up the story for a 10 year old as an explanation for her red cheeks..

Anyway, off-topic from teeth.
 
My father and uncle had it done when they were both 18 , and my dad told me that the idea was to save on expensive dental bills or the pain of not being able to go, as no teeth meant no need for the dentist ever again. A very common practice, certainly in the working class East End where he grew up, and in a time before the NHS transformed healthcare.
All my grandparents were working class and had their teeth extracted when very young. I can only ever remember them with false teeth and clicky plates! My Mum still has most of her teeth left and my Dad had ALL of his teeth when he died.
 
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