It must have depended on the dentist. I had a root canal and crown in 1957 when I was just barely 4 years old and he definitely used Novocaine. I also had to have 23 other cavities (I only had 20 teeth!) filled over the next few months, and I don’t recall them hurting much, so I’m sure he must have deadened at least some of them. They didn’t make disposable needles and syringes that were in broad use (mostly in the military and in Australia) back then, so if you got an injection in the USA of any kind it was done with a sterilized glass syringe and a sterilized stainless steel needle, both of which were often re-used multiple times. Becton-Dickinson marketed the first disposable syringes in the USA in 1961, and truly disposable hypodermic needles didn’t come on the scene until they were invented in 1971 by a Spanish inventor.
That’s because, strictly speaking, this comic is not supposed to have any comments allowed, but someone figured out a way to post them anyway. We expect the powers that be will stop them soon, but until then we’re enjoying them.
But McEldowney also despises comments far more than any other comics artist I’ve ever heard of. He’s the only one to ever get his syndicate to completely kill all comments on his strips, even to the point of removing the old ones. I am flabbergasted that these comments have gone on as long as they have.
Pibgorn allowed comments from the beginning until December 2009, when they were abruptly yanked. Mr. McEldowney tired of trolls and such, so he banned comments. Unfortunately for him, GoComics’ addition last month of the “Featured Comment” app made it possible to hack the strip and add comments. We’re sure that GoComics is working diligently to figure out how to block us, but meanwhile…
Apparently I haven’t been paying enough attention to our characters. When did one of them become a woman?