Frontier doctors had very few medicines or instruments, or even knowledge about the human body. Yet, disease was a more deadly enemy than the Indians. Some diseases that plagued the early settlers were malaria, cholera, typhoid, diphtheria, smallpox, tuberculosis and influenza. Sometimes, during an epidemic, more than half of settlements or villages would die from such diseases. Unclean water was often the root of the problem.
A pioneer doctor carried most of his supplies in his saddle bags. Usually, he carried homemade bandages, a few drugs, some syringes, knives, and a saw. By 1840, he had added tooth forcepts and maybe a stethoscope.
Many of these doctors had no medical training. They just read some books, or maybe, watched another doctor a few times, and then decided to try their luck--and lucky was the patient that survived the treatments. Some common treatments were: steam baths, freezing baths, secret Indian herbs, and draining away blood.
"Learning by doing" was about the best way available. Some doctors worked long hard hours, answered summons across many miles for very small fees. Typical payment in the 1800s was twenty-five cents to fifty cents a visit, perhaps a dollar if the doctor stayel all night. Payment was often in goods such as a chicken, or fruit, or payment on credit.
Dr. Benjamine Dudley who taught anatomy at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, the first medical school of the West, was one of the men who made some great advances. One of his big quarrels with fellow doctors was that infections could be reduced by cleansing surgical instruments in boiling water, and washing hands frequently. These were days before germ theory was well established, but he was determined that his methods of cleansing would prevent infection, and even faught a duel with a doctor who disagreed.
In the duel, Dr. Dudley shot the other man in the leg and then rushed forward to doctor him. The wound did not become infected and the two men became friends.
Dr. Ephraim McDowell, who practiced in Danville, Kentucky, in 1795 became quite famous for operations he performed. He traveled throughout the Ohio and Mississippi valleys to take care of difficult cases. He once operated on a fourteen year old boy suffering from a bladder stone. The boy lived, and many years later wrote a "thank you" letter to the doctor.
No way did Dr. Ephraim suspect that the boy would grow up to be President of the United States, James K. Polk.
Operations of that time were done without the benefit of anesthesia, because none was known. Patients had to endure the pain. Mrs. Jane Crawford, a forty-five-year-old wife and mother made the choice. She thought she was pregnant and the baby was dead. When Dr. McDowell was called, he found that she had an enormous ovarian tumor and could expect to live not more than a year. He said he would risk the difficult operation only if she came to his home which was more sanitary.
Mrs. Crawford, the mother of four, considered her chances and decided to risk the operation. It was winter in Kentucky and Danville was about sixty miles away over steep twisting trails. Leaving her husband in charge of the four little Crawfords, she set off on horseback, resting her swollen abdomen on the pommel of the saddle.
Details of her difficult journey are missing, but she made the trip. Dr. McDowell put her to bed for two days' rest before the operation. He planned to operate on Sunday so that the church might pray for the success of the operation while he was doing it.
Two assistants and a nurse helped. It was before knowledge for putting the patient to sleep, His patient grew afraid and he had to have help to hold her down. He removed a twenty-two pound tumor.
Five days later when the doctor looked into the room to check on his patient, she was up and making her bed. Three weeks after the operation she rode her horse back home.
Dr. Charles Gardiner was new to medicine and new to the West when he went to Colorado. Immediately he got a taste of the demands of the country. He was asked to operate on a woman suffering from a huge tumor on the head. The growth had so deformed her that she kept herself locked in her room not letting anyone see her.
Dr. Gardiner agreed to do the operation, but didn't know it was to be a public party. Dozens of miners and cowmen gathered about the house wanting to see the operation--or at least, to know of the progress. One big man crowded into the operating room, opened a window and leaned out. He told the doctor that he was going to report to the people. The doctor had no choice, but soon he was so concentrated on the operating that he heard but little of the report. He wrote about it later:
The big man said, "He's a-cutting into it. He's got it roped and hog-tied. She's a-doing fine, folks. The Doc's giving her a drink...It's all over but the shouting, boys." (p 91)*
Texas was the first state to form a board to license doctors, in 1873. Other states soon followed. Doctoring was left to the trained and improved.
*Groh, George, "Doctors of the Frontier," American Heritage, April, 1963.
