Most of us were first introduced to "Doc" Holliday as he walked with the Earp brothers to the OK Corral early one morning in Tombstone, Arizona, to shoot it out with the Clanton gang. But only a small segment of the public realizes that "Doc" was a degreed dentist. Dr. Frank Heynick, a dental and medical historian, has authored a book entitled Doc Holliday, DDS on the occasion of this dentist's 150th birthday. He contributes this article for our publication.

Being a dentist in the Old West was certainly not without risks. Whereas nowadays a clinical error might expose the doctor to a malpractice suite, on the old frontier satisfaction for the aggrieved patient could come more swiftly. The story is told of a dentist who supposedly pulled the wrong tooth of the notorious outlaw Clay Allison. The patient lost no time in turning the tables and extracting several of the hapless dentist's own teeth. Still, life in the gambling halls of the frontier boomtowns was generally riskier than in the dental office. Witness the career John Henry "Doc" Holliday, a man very much at home in both environments, and whose 150'h birthday we celebrate this year.

Born near Griffin, Georgia, in 1851, John was a teenager during the Civil War and the early Reconstruction Era. Though his family was impoverished by the war, they sent him to study at the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1869, which awarded him the DDS degree two years later at the age of 20. While not very stringent by today's standards, the PCDS curriculum was a progressive one in an age when most dental practitioners had no formal academic study. Most were trained by older colleagues under the preceptor system. Having graduated near the top of his class, young Doctor Holliday had every reason to look forward to a promising dental career in Atlanta.

But John was diagnosed with tuberculosis, in a rather advanced state. He was advised to seek drier climes out West in hopes of extending his life.

The dental situation on the frontier was all the less formal. Treatment usually began and ended with extraction, sometimes carried out by minimally qualified physicians and often by a blacksmith or other persons adept in the use of tongs. John Henry Holliday, DDS, was therefore potentially quite a valuable asset. Indeed, at his first practice in Dallas he shared top prize in several categories of dental craftsmanship at the annual North Texas Fair. But John's persistent coughing made patients shy away from him. And his fatalism about his disease together with a certain love of risk and liquor led him to spend more and more nights in the gambling halls.

Dr. Holliday's first saloon shoot-out took place on New Year's Day in 1875. Despite the exchange of several rounds, nobody was hit - John was not a very good shot. But Dallas became "too hot" for "Doc' (the nickname which went with his reputation as the gunfighting dentist.) Thus he set out on an odyssey through Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, and Nevada. Sometimes he would hang out his dental shingle, but would always spend his nights in the gambling halls, where disagreements were sometimes resolved in a less-than-gentlemanly fashion. This would result in Doc's quick departure for some other town.

Wyatt Earp, with whom Doc had become friends in Texas, was in the boomtown of Tombstone, Arizona, with his brothers Virgil, Morgan, and James. He wrote to Doc in 1880 telling him that the money flowed freely in the gambling halls and that he furthermore "could do well as there [is] no dentist."

The idealized version of the Tombstone saga tells of a conflict between good guys and bad guys. But in reality the situation was more ambiguous. There were political tensions between Republicans and Democrats, partly still reflecting the geographic (Northern and Southern) origins of the settlers. There were also social tensions between the small ranchers with their cowboys and the big mining and cattle interests. Dealing in cheap cattle rustled from Mexico did not weigh too heavily on the consciences of the cowboys. And their friends in town were likely to take a lenient view of the cowboys letting off steam as long as they paid good coin for their pleasures. However, those classes of society made wealthy by the flow of silver from the mines were particularly concerned about investment and real estate development. They were less inclined towards toleration.

In matters of law enforcement, there were plenty of political and jurisdictional conflicts between the town sheriff, the county sheriff, and the US marshal. The Earp Brothers wore various badges at various times. They were also saloon-keepers, gamblers, and consorts of prostitutes. Such activities were legal, if not particularly reputable. (Historians are still divided as to whether the Earps may also have been involved in some shady dealings.) But seeking respectability, the Earps aligned themselves with the interests of the business community. Personal enmity arose between Wyatt and the Democratic sheriff Johnny Behan. Doc Holliday, who on at least on occasion had saved Wyatt in a potentially deadly situation, was a defacto brother of the Earp clan. Furthermore, Doc and a well- known cowboy, Ike Clanton, developed a personal antagonism.

Tensions came to a head on October 26, 18 8 1, when five cowboys with a grudge against the Earps and Doc were milling around the alleyway near the 0,K.Corral. These cowboys were armed in violation of municipal ordinance (unless they,were in the process of leaving town). ignoring Sheriff Behan's protests, US Marshal Virgil Earp, with Wyatt, Morgan, and Doc deputized, moved to disarm and arrest the cowboy. Within a minute of their arrival, three cowboys were dead - on of them dispatched by a blast from Doc's shotgun, another struck by a slug from Doc's .45 revolver (though this wound was probably not the fatal one). Doc, Virgil, and Morgan were hit, but their injuries were not life-threatening.

The Earp brothers and Doc were arraigned on homicide charges. The prosecution bore down heavily on Doc due to his reputation as a killer. In the end, the judge deemed their actions to have been lawful though he censured the Earp party for lack of discretion.

Having failed to obtain satisfaction in the courts, friends of the deceased cowboys resorted to ambush. Morgan was killed and Virgil was seriously wounded. This provoked Wyatt and Doc to take a posse on what has been called a "Vendetta Ride" across Arizona dispatching several cowboys assumed to be the assailants. Although Wyatt still held a deputy US Marshal Commission, murder warrants were sworn out against him and Doc. Earp's posse was then pursued by Sheriff Behan's posse.

Doc went to Denver, where through legal maneuverings he circumvented an extradition order and was acquitted of a subsequent charge of deadly assault in a local confrontation. His final destination was Colorado Springs, where he vainly hoped that the sulfur baths might provide relief from his terminal consumption. To help finance the treatment he hung up his dentist's shingle for the last time before expiring in 1887 at age 35. He was surprised he had lived so long.

Plenty was written in Doc's own lifetime about the gunfighter-dentists - much of it patently erroneous. With the rise of motion pictures in the twentieth century, Doc was portrayed on the screen by Cesar Romero, Victor Mature, Kirk Douglas, Jason Robards, Stacy Keach, Val Kilmer, and Dennis Quaid. The films ranged from reasonably sincere to outright fables.

To this day there is much disagreement about how many men Doc in fact mortally wounded. Serious estimates range from just the one at the O.K. Corral to around 16. It is fair to say, in any case, that John Henry Holliday was a dentist who knew how to drill a man in more ways than one. He holds the distinction of being the only dentist in all history whose name has been familiar generation after generation, in America and far beyond.


Dr. Frank Heynick has authored a book, Doc Holliday, DDS, which is available at or by phoning 718/375-9101. Dr. Heynick has published articles appearing in the Bulletin of the History of dentistry, in Cranio: the Journal of Craniomandibular Practice, and in Angle Orthodontist. lEs five part series on the history of dentistry over the last millennium have been printed in the Journal of the New Jersey Dental Association, the Rhode Island Dental Journal, the Journal of the Colorado Dental Association, the Detroit Dental Bulletin, the Wyoming Dental Association Newsletter, and Focus on Ohio Dentistry. Dr. Heynick has been writing a regular dental history column for the Dutch magazines Tandarts-Praktijk, Standby, and Exkies.