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Because as dentists we actually diagnose and treat a condition that we understand and can resolve.“Oil-pulling”, which is actually just swishing with a semi-hydrophilic oil such as coconut, is such a crock of mumbo-jumbo that we honestly don’t have time for it. Surprisingly to most “alternative medicine” aficionados, salt water rinses are “holistic”, and promote fibroblast formation. They are also cheaper, more hygienic, and better for the environment.Even so, swishing with such a substance might temporarily reduce some swelling, due to the lavage effects and the cooling effects, but aren’t you just a little curious as to WHY the gum is swollen?You see, if you have swollen gums, there should be a reason.If there is a reason, there is a treatment.For example, here is a gum swelling:This is an abscess secondary to a trauma. Oil-pulling will not help that.This is primary (or acute) herpetic gingival stomatitis. Oil-pulling will make it worse.This is discoid lupus. Oil-pulling will make you feel like you have done something, whereas it will only delay actual treatment, making you sicker.This is granulomatosis with polyangiitis. It is a potentially fatal disease. Oil-pulling will only delay treatment, leading to a more serious condition.This is lichen planus. Good luck swishing that away.Have swollen gums? See someone who can actually tell you why. Hint: they aren’t on the internet. Then, we can guide you to treatment.Edit:There has been a commenter who has suggested that by calling out “oil-pulling” I am somehow disrespecting or dismissing other forms of “alternative medicine”. As an answer, I think that the Canadian Dental Association’s statement says it all:The Canadian Dental Association concluded from their assessment:Oil pulling is a suggestive misnomer, implying that something bad is being pulled from the mouth (toxins and bacteria). What little scientific evidence exists shows that it is probably not as effective as standard mouth wash, and what benefit it has is likely entirely due to the mechanical act of swishing to remove particles and bacteria from teeth and gums ... Oil pulling for general health or any other indication is pure pseudoscience. Detox claims are based on nothing, as are all detox claims. There is no evidence or plausible rationale to recommend oil pulling for any indication other than as a poor substitute for oral care.Edit: Thank you for the upvotes. Once again, I am not trying to do anything but spread facts on Quora. I have no interest in advising people to do anything except what is best for their health. Once you have seen the effects of dental neglect secondary to “alternative medicine treatments”, you quickly become very jaded against “oil pulling”, fluoride avoiding [we are trying to help you, seriously], x-ray avoiding [one CAT scan exposes you to more radiation than a lifetime of dental x-rays] , “behavioral kinesiology”, “homeopathy” [don’t even get me started], “chelation” [one of the most insidious forms of quackery], mercury toxicity scare tactics [if it was that dangerous, there would be no old dental assistants and dentists], “toxin elimination” [what are these toxins exactly? List them. Show me how you eliminate them. Oh, you can’t. That is interesting.], dental amalgam removal [did you know that removing your amalgam exposes you to more mercury than leaving it in for your whole life? I thought not.], and on and on and on . . .You want holistic dentistry? Eat healthy foods, eat lots of vegetables, keep the carbohydrates to a minimum, don’t smoke (marijuana or tobacco), no drugs, don’t vape, keep alcohol to a minimum, drink mostly water and lots of that, exercise and keep your stress down, floss and brush two times a day with a fluoride toothpaste, rinse thoroughly afterwards, and you’ll be fine.Update: I cannot believe that I have gotten 3k upvotes on a dentistry question. Wow. I only thought teenagers and YouTubers got 3k upvotes anymore on Quora.

Strange that none of the answers here mentions anything about the origins of retroflexes in Indo-Aryan, but simply beat about the bush with nationalistic tales of how important Dravidian languages are. No one doubts that Dravidian languages have had a lot of influence on their Indo-Aryan neighbors. There was also interbreeding and assimilation. All that is true. But that’s not what the question is about. The occurrence of retroflexes in Indo-Aryan cannot be explained by such a simplistic explanation as “borrowed from Dravidian”. Retroflexes in South Asia are definitely not limited to Dravidian languages. The language isolates Burushaski and Nihali feature retroflexes too, as do the Munda languages. Without proper evidence, it makes no sense to argue that Indo-Aryan got retroflexes specifically from Dravidian than one of these others or some of their now-dead relatives.[See also the second point in Simon Labrunie's answer to Among the Romance languages, why does French have the gutteral R’s while Spanish and Italian roll their R’s? for a similar simplistic fallacy.]What’s important to understand is that retroflexes occur in Sanskrit even in words with demonstrably Indo-European roots, not just Dravidian or other South Asian borrowings. Moreover, the greatest concentration of retroflex phonemes among Indo-Aryan occurs up north among the Dardic languages, far away from Dravidian. For a taste, Shina has 9 distinct retroflex consonants, Kalasha has 10 or 11 retroflex consonants depending how you count, and we are not even counting the tons of retroflex vowels. Compare that to Marathi’s 7 or 8, and Bengali’s 4 or 5. And even more, all Nuristani languages and Iranic languages in the vicinity of Indo-Aryan, such as Pashto and Wakhi, have retroflexes.Anyway, let’s look at the development of retroflexes in Sanskrit/Old Indo-Aryan first. Jamison (2008) notes,“The series of retroflex stops was a creation of Indic, in most cases as a conditioned result of regressive assimilation to RUKIfied s. and therefore distributionally limited; in particular, initial retroflexes are almost never found … all the retroflexes are in origin conditioned alternants of dentals”“RUKIfied” has a special meaning. It refers to a sound change in going from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) to Proto-Indo-Iranian (PIIr) and other Satem families. By this law, a historical *s changed to *š when preceded by one of *r, *u, *k, *i. Indo-Iranian also did RUKI with Indo-European *l, but since *l and *r were nearly merged (this is a complicated area) in Indo-Iranian anyway, this point is inconsequential. Before voiced consonants, we have *ž instead of *š, as expected.PIE PIIr Sans. Avest. Eng. Lat. Lith. *tr̥s- *tŕ̥š tŕ̥ṣ(ṇā) tarš(na) thirs(t) terr(a) *nisdós *niždás nīḍás niždah nest nīdus lìzdas *ǵeus- *ĵauš- joṣ(ati) zaoš(ō) cos(t) gus(tus) *kʷsép- *kšáp- kṣáp- xšap- Another source of *š and *ž in PIIr were the old palato-velars of PIE.PIE PIIr Sans. Avest. Eng. Lat. *h₁oḱtṓw *aštā́ aṣṭá ašta eight octō Finally, the PIE clusters dental+velar yielded *š and *ž.PIE PIIr Sans. Avest. A.Greek *tḱéytro *ĉšáytra kṣétra šōiθra ékt- This *š (and *ž) was likely pronounced something like /ʃ/ (English ‘sh’) in PIIr, which remained in Iranian languages (like Avestan and Old Persian). In Indo-Aryan, as can be seen from the examples, *š changed to retroflex ṣ (Devanāgarī ष, pronounced /ʂ/). Not only that, any dental consonant forming clusters with this newly developed ṣ also became retroflex (like the ṭ in aṣṭá). Furthermore, in words like *niždás above, the sound that originally caused the *d to become retroflex ḍ (Devanāgarī ड, pronounced /ɖ/) has disappeared, leaving only ḍ — a single retroflex consonant without the adjoining *š or *ž.PIE PIIr Sans. Avest. Eng. Russ. A.Greek *nisdós *niždás nīḍás niždah nest gnezdó *misdʰós *miždʰám mīḍʰá mīžda mzda mistʰós A similar loss of z-like sounds has happened before *d in Sanskrit even when there was no possibility of retroflexion.PIE PIIr Sans. Avest. A.Greek *meHndʰ- *mazdʰáH medʰā́ mazdā mantʰá(nō) Sanskrit ś (Devanāgarī श, pronounced /ɕ/) comes from a different source.Regarding the distribution of the retroflex ṇ (Devanāgarī ण, pronounced /ɳ/), Jamison (2008) writes,“The retroflex nasal is ordinarily the automatic product of dental nasal when the word contains a preceding r (subject to some conditions)”In particular, ṇ occurs only when there is a nearby r or ṣ.So, the influence of Dravidian lies not in the development of retroflexes in Indo-Aryan. That said, Fortson (2004) does note,“Many other words with retroflex stops were borrowed from Dravidian languages to the south. As the Indic tribes moved southward, the number of such loans increased, resulting in a general expansion of retroflexion that even affected originally non-retroflex dentals in native Sanskrit words”Now, in modern Indo-Aryan languages, the story is more complex. As noted before, the greatest concentration of retroflex phonemes is in the north, in the so-called Dardic languages. These even feature retroflex affricates that did not exist in Sanskrit, but curiously, exists in Burushaski (and possibly Balti??). Dardic languages are also somewhat conservative in that most of them have preserved the three-way sibilant distinction of Sanskrit ś-ṣ-s (Devanāgarī श-ष-स, pronounced /ɕ ʂ s̻/) that has been lost further south. [Kashmiri — the most famous Dardic language — is an exception. It does not have retroflex sibilants.] Indeed, many of them have gone the further mile, and come up with one or more of /ʑ ʐ z̻/ (/z/ has developed elsewhere too, like Marathi and Assamese). For example,Kalasha aṣṭ Sanskrit aṣṭá "eight" Palula c̣ʰīr Sanskrit kṣīrá "milk" Shina mṹẓi Sanskrit mū́ṣ "mouse" Sometimes loanwords with no retroflexes have been borrowed with retroflexes. E.g., Kalasha aṣek (“romantic love”), ultimately from Arabic 3āšiq, but probably through Persian or Urdu.Elsewhere, retroflexes are mostly stops /ʈ ɖ/ (and their aspirated counterparts), liquids /ɭ ɽ/ (usually just one per language, but Panjabi, for instance, has both) and the nasal /ɳ/. All of these, except /ɭ/, also occur in the Dardic languages.To take an concrete example, in Sindhi, extra retroflexes have been added by mutating dentals, usually when a nearby historical r has disappeared. For example,Sindhi puṭu Sanskrit putrá "son" Sindhi ḍigʰo Sanskrit dīrgʰá "long" Sindhi ʄaṇo Sanskrit janaḣ "person" Likewise, A Comparative Dictionary of Indo-Aryan Languages derives Hindi-Urdu ṭʰaṇḍā (“cold”) from Sanskrit stabdʰa, a word with no retroflexes whatsoever.In the east, languages like Bengali don’t have retroflexes in the phonetic sense (except in learned/cultivated speech), but the “retroflex-dental” distinction is still preserved as an apical-laminal distinction. So, phonologically, “retroflexes” still exist. Now, the number of such phonemically distinct retroflexes is small, but they are very frequent. Some of the most common morphemes (including the inanimate measure word -ṭā which pops up every time we count) have retroflexes.And then, outside of the main South Asian language area, retroflexes have been completely merged with dentals. This is the case of Romani in Europe, and also, Assamese, which is still in South Asia, but at the very edge.Now, it’s hard to say how exactly retroflexes are gained or lost, but it is for the most part, a continuous process. Children growing up speaking Indo-Aryan frequently mix retroflexes and dentals, and don’t get comfortable in the distinction until about five or six (no sources to back claim up). Usually, a few “wrong” pronunciations persist into adulthood, unless they are corrected in school. Remember that Hindi-Urdu example ṭʰaṇḍā (“cold”)? That word also exists in Bengali (possibly a borrowing from Hindi-Urdu or some Bihari dialect) as ṭʰāṇḍā. But, I have always pronounced it with a dental t (instead of the “correct” retroflex). I used to mess up the spelling of this word a lot in school, and got corrected, but my speech never changed. And I know many others who make/made the same “mistake” as me. Such minor changes probably take place in every generation, but only some are standardized. Who knows, may be in the future tʰāṇḍā with a dental t will become the standard??Chart of retroflex phonemes in some Indo-Aryan languages (along with a few Iranian and Nuristani languages):Sanskrit ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ ɳ ʂ (ɭ) (ɭʱ)  Kalasha ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ ʈ͡ʂ ʈ͡ʂʰ ɖ͡ʐ (ɳ) ʂ ʐ (ɽ) Shina ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ʈ͡ʂ ʈ͡ʂʰ ɳ ʂ ʐ ɽ Kashmiri ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ʈʲ ʈʰʲ ɖʲ Panjabi ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɳ ɽ ɭ Hindustani ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ (ɳ) ɽ ɽʱ  Sindhi ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ ɳ ɳʱ ɽ ɽʱ ɗ Marwari ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ ɳ ɽ ɭ ɗ Gujarati ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ ɳ ɳʱ ɭ Romani Marathi ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ ɳ ɭ Konkani ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ ɳ ɳʱ ɽ ɭ Sinhalese ʈ ɖ ᶯɖ Nepali ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ Bhojpuri ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ ɳ ɽ ɽʱ  Odia ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ ɳ ɭ Bengali ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ (ɽ) Rohingya ʈ ɖ ɽ Assamese Ashkun ʈ ɖ ʈ͡ʂ ɖ͡ʐ ɳ ʂ ʐ ɽ Bashgali ʈ ɖ ʈ͡ʂ ɖ͡ʐ ɳ ʂ ʐ (ɽ) Pashto ʈ ɖ ɳ ʂ ʐ ɭ̆  Wakhi ʈ ɖ ʈ͡ʂ ɖ͡ʐ ʂ ʐ Balochi ʈ ɖ ɳ (ɽ) Ashkun and Bashgali are Nuristani languages.Balochi, Wakhi and Pashto are Iranian languages.Western Balochi dialects (including those in Iran) don’t have any retroflexes.Not all Pashto dialects have retroflex sibilants. Only the so-called “soft” dialects do.Kalasha has retroflex vowels in addition to these consonants. [It might just be the most retroflex-y language in the world!]The rows for Assamese and Romani are blank (obviously).As said before, Bengali doesn’t have true retroflexes.The alignment of this table (and the others) may be a little missed up on phones.References:Cardona, George & Jain, Dhanesh (ed), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge (2004)Fortson IV, Benjamin W., Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, Blackwell Publishing (2004) (Chapters 10 and 11)Jamison, Stephanie W., “Sanskrit”, in Woodard, Roger D. (ed.), The Ancient Languages of Asia and the Americas, Cambridge University Press (2008) (Chapter 2)Masica, Colin P., The Indo-Aryan Languages, Cambridge University Press (1991)Petersen, Jan H., “Kalasha Texts — with Introductory Grammar”, Acta Linguistica Hafniensia (2015)Testen, David, “Old Persian and Avestan Phonology”, in Kaye, Alan S. (ed), Phonologies of Asia and Africa (Including the Caucasus), Vol. 2, Eisenbrauns (1997) (Chapter 2.29)Indo-Aryan languages - WikipediaProto-Indo-Iranian language - WikipediaSāmapriẏa Basu (সামপ্রিয় বসু)'s answer to What's the difference between the Indo-Aryan and the Indo-Iranian languages? Is Indo-Aryan a valid technical term?

The short answer is, that in the late 1800s Dr. Alfred Southwick concluded that electricity could be used as an alternative to hanging for executions because it appeared to be quick and painless, and pushed to have it adopted as a form of execution.The search for a modern, humane method of criminal execution was triggered by a freak accident which occurred in Buffalo, New York in 1881. Dr. Alfred P. Southwick (a former steam-boat engineer, noted dentist and dental educator) happened to witness an intoxicated man die after he inadvertently touched a live generator terminal.... As his thoughts turned to common methods of capital punishment, Alfred concluded that death by electrocution could become a more humane alternative, as compared with the more grisly methods (e.g., hanging, beheading by guillotine, garroting, suffocation and flaying). Working through the governor of New York and the state legislature, Southwick originated and successfully promoted the passage of laws which mandated electrical executions in New York and in approximately 20 other states. (1)Beyond the initial idea of execution by electrocution attributed to Dr. Albert Southwick, the creator of the first chair varies a bit from different sources.According to the History Chanel:In 1889, New York’s Electrical Execution Law, the first of its kind in the world, went into effect, and Edwin R. Davis, the Auburn Prison electrician, was commissioned to design an electric chair. Closely resembling the modern device, Davis’ chair was fitted with two electrodes, which were composed of metal disks held together with rubber and covered with a damp sponge. The electrodes were to be applied to the criminal’s head and back.(2)Trying to find original sources for references in the story of who created the first electric is difficult as many often used references do not cite first hand information, and get into the myths and legends of Thomas Edison.Many sources state that American electrical engineer Harold P. Brown was commissioned by the state of New York to build the first electric chair.According to some stories, after Harold Brown saw a series of deaths in New York caused by alternating current lines he began a crusade against the use of alternating current. Most of the stories of Thomas Edison killing animals to prove the dangers of alternating current are actually the experiments of Harold Brown trying to prove to the world that alternating current was dangerous. Edison allowed Brown the use of his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory to prove his claims against alternating current, which included the electrocution of animals to prove the dangers of alternating current.There was a book written, "Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death" by Mark Essig, which goes into the details of Harold P. Brown and his connection to Thomas Edison.It is true that Edison used the creation of the electric chair, powered by AC current, in his propaganda in the War of Currents against Westinghouse. Edison took delight in stating that the first person who was executed by the electric chair was “Westinghoused.”But many of the references and resources about Edison's involvement in the invention of the electric chair were written many years after the event, so it is difficult to separate the mythology from the facts.(1) Alfred P. Southwick, MDS, DDS: dental practitioner, educator and originator of electrical executions.(2) First execution by electric chair