Deformutilation: Street Dentists, a Vanishing Breed

A look at street dentists in India, who are veterans of their own trade. Street services are hardly an anomaly in the cities and villages here. These skills are passed down through the family and are slowly becoming extinct, as the country now has over eighty-thousand licensed dentists with degrees and offices. There are now fewer than 100 Indian street dentists left practicing. A typical street dentist in India has a tray laid out on the ground, covered with a few dozen used dentures. Patients come and go, and the dentist’s hands go straight from one patient’s mouth to another. Flies buzz around the patient’s wide-open mouth, and rest themselves atop any blood that may have poured onto the concrete. Molars are ripped out of a patient’s mouth with a pair of rusty old pliers. This work is typically performed for 100-200 rupees, or $2 US.