The Newberry herald. [volume] (Newberry, S.C.) 1865-1884, 1876-01-12

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TORS WHO SETTLED IN MICHIGAN,
AS TOLD BY THE DETROIT GREE
PRESS"
Not more than FIVE acres of
Michigan had been chopped and
logged off before a doctor arrived
in the State, and they have con-
tinued to arrive ever since that
hour. The first hundred or so
didn't doctor after the set rules
of allopatby or homeopathy. The
grand object was to give sick
man his moneys worth of medi-
cine,a ,and a little over. Drugstores
were few and far between in those
days, and every doctor carrie ID
his medicines with him. Indeed,
this rule was practiced up to fifteen
or twenty years ago, when physi-
clans all at once got the notion
that it was more convenient and
stylish for the patients friends to
turn out at midnight and walk
from oneto five miles toget a pre-
scription filed than it was for the
doctor to sit by the bed and deal
out the drugs.
The first doctors were very &C.
centric and ambitious. If a man
fell sick they called it fever'n ague
and pushed powders, liquids, and
other things down his throat until
change occurred. If for the
worse they gave the disease some
other name and put on mustard
plasters, gave the patient cafomel,
kept his feet warm, and aoctored
him on that theory until he raj
lied or was still further reduced. IT
he got well it was a big card for
the doctor. IF be died the doctors
for sixteen miles around would
swear that the person couldn't
have been cured nohow:r .,.. -.
It can't be ascertaiued that more
than one of.these early practition-
gave.up apatientin 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 a low fever, and the physi-
clan attended him for a month
without noticing an improvement.
On the contrary, the patientseem-
cd 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 out doors he said =: a..
II can't come any more; / am
going to Cleveland to h7e." -..
When she asked about her
husbands prospects, he replied:
Gle is certain to die. I never
saw such a case before. I COM
menced with "A in the alphabet
of medicines and have run him
down to sand so FORTH and ha7n't
moved him a peg"
The patient fell out Of bed and
broke his arm the next day, and
in three months was able to carry
a 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 rapidly growing
country they felt that time was
the great desideratum. A doctor
living in Macomb county, when
called upon to set a broken leg
for a laboring man, examined the
limb and said:
"IfI set this limb it will be five
or six months before you can walk.
If I saw it off and make you a
wooden leg you'll be out splitting
rails in less than three months"
The man declined the generous
offer, and the doctor sighed drear-
ilv as he rolled down his shirt
sleeves.
Those doctors, too, had warm
sympathetic hearts. One Of them
killed a man il Washtenaw county
by giving him poison in place Of
calomel. Upon discovering his mis-
take he rode out to see the widow,
and after a few preliminary re-
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