dentistry
Explanation
The Joke
The comic depicts a dental visit that escalates into an increasingly hostile and philosophical exchange. The dentist asks, "Have you been flossing regularly?" and the patient immediately gets defensive, comparing it to going to a mechanic to hear about how your car is a failure. When the dentist mentions that none of the patient's "pioneer patients" would complain because their diet consisted entirely of "roots, turtles, and your candy stones," the patient fires back that he has to supplement his diet with iron to keep his legs from falling off his face.
The argument intensifies as the patient declares: "I had the desire and the wherewithal to change. I would do it. As I do not, I expect you to go in there and do stuff until I can go back to disgorging every surface inside my mouth on an hourly basis." He then threatens to consult a philosopher to determine whether dentistry is "just an inflated branch of barbering." In the final panel, set "later," we see the patient smugly informing someone that he made a dentist cry -- presented as an achievement.
The Humor
The humor comes from the patient treating a routine dental visit as a battle of wills and intellect, deploying philosophical arguments and elaborate rhetoric to avoid taking any personal responsibility for dental hygiene. The escalation is absurd -- from defensiveness about flossing to threatening to sic a philosopher on the entire field of dentistry. The final panel, where the patient brags about making the dentist cry, frames this adversarial patient as someone who sees the dentist not as a healthcare provider but as an opponent to be defeated. It satirizes the common human tendency to resent professionals who tell us things we do not want to hear, taken to a ludicrous extreme.
References
The reference to dentistry as "an inflated branch of barbering" alludes to the historical fact that barbers performed dental extractions and minor surgeries in medieval and early modern Europe. The barber-surgeon was a common figure, and the red-and-white barber pole originally symbolized blood and bandages. Dentistry did not emerge as a distinct medical profession until the 18th century.