Deep Dive: Peter the Great and All His Teeth

When I read about nobility, it tends to be these weird details I focus on. I think because, for example, Peter the Great is such a huge figure, the fact he thought it was fun to pull teeth out and then save them is just odd enough to balance all that other stuff out in my head. That, and he had a real zeal for all things medical. The guy loved to operate on both people who needed operating and cadavers alike. Of course, no one would ever dare tell a Tsar they aren't absolutely the best at all things, so no we really don't know how good he was at medicine. 

So here you've got the kind of morbid curiosity that gets me going, and thus, the topic of today's post. 

Peter was a man of many talents, and he appears to have mastered most of them, from cartography to blacksmithing, the guy appears to have had many varied interests and really threw himself into all of them. He was smart, and capable of wrapping his mind around a lot of complexities. He had an illustrious reign and was well-loved by most, transforming Russia into a power that could compete on the global stage. He modernized the country, creating schools, the navy, enhanced the economy and so much more. He truly is a fascinating figure to learn about, doing more for his country than most people would think possible. It is no wonder he casts such a long shadow. 

Peter was an interesting guy, with a well-known lust for knowledge and understanding, married oddly with a certain disregard for human life. This is, quite honestly, one reason why he fascinates me. He had a whole lot of passion and drive to know all the things, yet he had his eldest son tortured and killed for allegedly conspiring against him. And while I realize that's a crime and all that, it was still his flesh and blood and it takes a certain amount of cold calculation to do that to your own kid. 

But I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about his interests. One of which, was medicine.

When he was in Amsterdam, he visited a Museum of the Anatomy by Professor Frederik Ruysch and also took lessons from him. This apparently kindled another passion: medicine. In 1699, he took his knowledge and inaugurated the first anatomy classes for the boyars back in Russia. There was more to this fascination than just an interest in how the human body and slicing and dicing. For hundreds of years, there was really no medical practice in Russia, nor was it allowed there. Medicine was considered witchcraft, and was partaken of only with the help of the Devil and resulted in the creation of monsters. If you had a toothache, for example, pre-Peter the Great, you either found a foreign doctor to deal with it, you went to church, or you found a witch. 

Peter's interest in medicine, while obviously a personal passion for him, went a long way toward dispelling these old myths that were so prevalent in the Russian landscape of that day and age. In fact, Peter's hobby of purchasing "wunderkammern" or "cabinets of curiosity" as they are called in the West, was one way he went about dispelling these myths. Throughout his life, he collected many oddities from known wunderkammern of his day, and even created his own, where he displayed all of the teeth he'd pulled and carefully labeled. 

According to his biographer, Ivan Golikov, Peter ordered that he should be informed before all operations and rarely missed any, even participating in a good number of them. He "rarely missed an opportunity to be present... and often helped perform operations. Over time he acquired such a level of skill that he became the most adept at dissecting corpses, bloodletting, and extracting teeth, and was very keen to perform such operations." 

In 1724, a contemporary of Peter's wrote in his journal that Peter's niece, "is in great fear that the emperor will deal with her bad leg soon: It is well known that he regards himself a great surgeon and willingly undertakes all sorts of operations on patients." Apparently, even if a patient died on the operating table, he would explain what he had done, and what had happened like it was meant to happen, and then he'd just continue right along dissecting the corpse after a brief prayer. 

Like I mention at the start of the article, we never really will know how good Peter truly was, because no one would dare tell a Tsar they weren't absolutely perfect at anything they attempted. That way lay lots of pain, so perhaps he was really as good as everyone professed, or perhaps not. We'll never know. What we do know is that the passion was there, and Peter was not a stupid guy. He mastered a whole lot of different  skills over his life (some claim he mastered 14 different crafts). 

Peter had a specific love of pulling teeth. He carried a case of surgical instruments with him wherever he went, and was ready at a moment's notice to pull the teeth of whoever he met. As you can see from the picture of his tooth collection, he saved the teeth he pulled, numbering and carefully labelling them. You can also likely see, some of the teeth were healthy. In fact, I watched a lecture series on Russian history done by the Great Courses, and the lecturer mentioned that he was so willing and ready to pull out teeth, those around him learned to not complain of any physical ailment (because the treatment would almost always require the loss of a tooth) and if they were in pain, they would walk the other way when they saw Peter and his black bag coming. 

His interest in medicine and all things teeth actually ended up benefitting Russia with the first state-run medical hospital and school in the country, opened up by Peter the Great himself, and his private physician Nicholas Lamburtus Bidloo. According to Hermitage Magazine, the curriculum covered anatomy conducted on corpses in the anatomical theater, surgery, internal medicine, autopsy, chemistry, drawing and latin, while pharmacy was studied in the Botanical Garden. 

Furthermore, Peter realized he needed to improve the medical understanding of those in his country. He needed trained physicians to also fill the ranks of his burgeoning Navy. He understood he had to go about this a few different ways. One, by dispelling the idea that medicine = witchcraft. Two, by sending men abroad for higher, more focused education in the art. Three, by opening up medical schools throughout Russia, and he went about doing all of this. 

Ultimately, Peter the Great's personal passion for medicine ended up being one of the main things that helped move his country into his modern era. He worked hard to dispel folklore and myths about witchcraft, improved education, and made the medical practice something that happened in his country. 

Even if he sent people running when they saw him coming with his black bag.