The Dentist and the Alleged Blackmailer
A patient sues her dentist for malpractice, while he claims she is a pawn in a sophisticated extortion scheme involving drug habits and family wealth.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Adah Shane yesterday sued Dr. W. E. J. Coyne, a well-known Seattle dentist, for $5,500 in damages for malpractice. According to the complaint, Miss Shane visited Dr. Coyne's offices in the Occidental block on September 16, suffering from a toothache. She alleges that while filling her mouth with raw chloroform to extract the tooth, the dentist broke her right lower jaw and burned the lining of her mouth so severely that she was confined to her bed for weeks, suffering from suppuration and insanity. Dr. Coyne, however, maintains the suit is a blackmail attempt. He claims the patient was referred to him by a physician from the German Remedy Institute of Portland, and that upon examination, he found her mouth already raw and injured from the inhalation and swallowing of chloroform. He asserts that the patient has been under treatment for drug habits at the institute, where her father is a wealthy stockholder, and that the allegations of a broken jaw are medically impossible.
“What a shame it is that a man who is poor and can barely make a living in this town has to get attorneys to defend such a suit for him.”
This dispute highlights the 19th-century medical marketplace in Seattle, where dentistry was often unregulated and personal reputation served as the primary proof of professional competence. Similar to today's medical malpractice litigation, the case pits the traumatic experience of a patient against the defensive posturing of a professional, though filtered here through the lens of Victorian-era morality and societal scandal.
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