Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-11-11
The Primitive Doctors OF Detroit.

NOT more than five acres of Michigan
had been chopped and logged off before a
doctor arrived in the State, and they have
continued TO arrive ever since that hour
The first hundred or so didn't doctor after
the set rules of allopathy or homeopathy
The grand object was to give sick man
his moneys worth of medicine and a lit
tie over. Drug stores were few and far
between in those days and every doctor
carried his medicines with him. Indeed
this rule was practiced up to fifteen or
twenty years ago, when physicians all at
once got the notion that it was more con-
venient and stylish for the patients friends
to turn out at midnight and walk from
one to five miles to get prescription
filled than it was for the doctor to sit
by the bed and deal out the drugs
The first doctors were very energetic
and ambitious. If man fell sick they
called it fever'n ague and pushed pow
ders, liquids and other things down his
throat until change occurred. If he got
worse they gave the disease some other
name and put on mustard plasters, gave
the patient calomel, kept his feet warm
and doctored him on that theory until he
rallied Or was still further reduced. If he
got well it was a big card for the doctor
If he died the doctors for sixteen miles
around would swear that the person
couldn't have been cured nOhow.
1t can't be ascertained that more than
one Of those early practitioners ever gave
up patient in despair. That one was
resident of Wayne County and was called
to see a pioneer living seven or eight
miles from Detroit. The man had some
sort of low fever and the physician at
tended him for month without noticing
any improvement. On the contrary the
patient seemed to be sinking, and fearing
to lose practice if the man died on his
hands the physician decided to abandon
the case. Calling the wife outdoors he
said:
6" 1 can't come any more; am going to
Cleveland to live"
When she asked about her husbands
prospects, he replied:
He is certain to die. I never saw
such case before. / commenced with
A in the alphabet of medicines, and
have run him down to and so FORTH and
haven't moved him peg"
The patient fell out of bed and broke
his arm next day, and in three months
was able to carry bushel of wheat to
Detroit on his shoulder
The doctors were just as polite and
gentle in those pioneer days as they are
now, and, catching the spirit of the rap
idly growing country, they felt that time
was the great desideratum. A doctor liv-
ing in Macomb County, when called upon
to set broken leg for laborlng man, ex-
amined the limb and said:
eff / set this limb it will be five or six
months before you can walk. If | saw it
off and make you wooden leg you'll be
out splitting rails in less than three
months"
The man declined the generous offer
and the doctor sighed drearily as he rolled
down his shirt-sleeves.
Those doctors, too, had warm and sym
pathetic hearts. One Of them killed a
man in Washtenaw County by giving him
poison instead of caIomel. Upon discoY-
ering his mistake he rode out TO see the
widow and, after few preliminary re-
marks, said:
I'm very sorry, Mrs. Cotter, but it
can't be helped now; John was pretty
good man, but there's others just as good.
I'm willing to do the fair thing by you,
being as it was my mistake. a brother of
mine is coming from York State next