Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1883-03-29
Helena, Montana, Thursday, March 20, 1883.
THE DOCTOR in CAMP.
The First Medicine Man at Calico Flats.

THE DOCTOR IN CAMP.
The First Medicine Man at Calico Flats.
You may wonder how the miners got
along without a doctor in camp, for there
were indeed times enough when the services
OF skillful physician were in demand.
That winter that we put in at Calico Flats
there was somebody ON the sick list all the
time, and there were days when we had
three or four patients in the hospital at once.
AS to medicine our mainstay was hot
sweat When man began to dump around
we didn't loose time by feeling for his pulse
or looking at his tongue. Three or four
stones were put in the fire to heat, blankets
borrowed for the occasion, and when we got
steam on the knots and twists and kinds in
that chaps case had to unravel. He'd come
out as long and fiat and thin and white as
you please, and if any one pointed finger
at him for the next week, he'd cry like a
baby.
Aext to a sweat we had decoction of
le14e barks and roots, and once or twice we
t1te0 the earth cure. On one occasion when
afed headed miner from Ohio was laid up
with pain in the side, stranger came
along from White Dog Bend and said he
could cure him by laying on of hands For
three long hours he smothed away at the
patient as steady as clock work, and then
there was row. The smoother asserted
that the cure was complete, while the
patient denied that the pain was whit
easier, and, of course we stood by our COM
panion and gave the stranger tumble off a
cliff twenty eight feet high into an old snow
drift eighteen feet deep.
But as I said at the start, sickness became
so prevalent, and our plain remedies had so
little effect, that it was finally decided to
send up to Sacramento for doctor. The
idea was to have him come down and brace
us IL up and leave medicines and remedies,
and the expense was to be born by a shake
purse.
A letter was sent to dealer in the town,
asking him to forward a doctor, and in about
five days along he came. He was young
man of "a just out of college in the East,
and just landed on the slope without dol
in his pocket, and all he brought to camp
with him was lancet, some prescription
blanks and stick of salve for making stick
ing plaster.
There were four men in the hospital that |
day, and after bit the doctor entered to
take a look at them. 1t happened that he
came to Big Jim Smith first Smith was
threatened with infammatory rheumatism
and was in no m ood to take nonsense.
"Run out your tongue" said the Doctor,
as he bent over the man.
Big Jim displayed it, but lin such begrudg-
ng way that it was plain to see that he
thought it all bosh.
Your pulse" said the doctor, as he reached
,ver for Jim's paw.
pulse? 1t haint got any," growled jim
"Oh, yes, you have. Here it is in your wrist.
Keep still for moment"
stranger" said Jim, after the doctor had
lropped his hand, "d'ye mean to tell me that
e can feel a mans wrist and tell what ails
lis inside?"
"Yes, in measure"
Excuse my not calling you liar but
ONE of the boys will do it fur me afore your
n hour older"
"What are your symptoms ?" asked the
loctor.
Never had any"
But how do you feel? 2"
Sick"
"How were you taken?
STRANGER, what are ye driving at ?" de-
handed Jim, as he sat up in bed.
"Have you got pains?"
I'm course, 1 have! Dye 'spose I'd be
ying fiat on my back here if anything less'n
ton was holding me down? ?"
do you ache?"
"Rayther"
"Any fever?"
"Wall, git away with quart of cold
vater at gulp."
The doctor sat and studied the case for a
ew minutes, and then he came over to the
hanty where the committee had assembled,
nd said:
Gentlemen, the case of Big Jim is se1i-
us one. He needs change of diet, scenery
nd air. My advice is that you brace him
p as well as you can ON chicken soup and
eef tea, and then send him off for trip to
uba. I'll look at the other cases in the ]
lorning"
But he never did. When the boys found !
nat he had come without even dose of S
uinine, and they heard him talk about
hicken soup and trips to Cuba for man
tho hadn't five dollars to his name they l
,aited upon him in sort of hilarious body, t
nd at midnight he went up the trail at the /
.te of twelve miles an hour, with crowd I
ehind him aching for his ears as relics. l
Next day we heated half ton of rocks, t
,ok six or eight blankets, and gave Big Jim t
lch sweat that all his toenails shed of, l
Id rather than be cured in the same way Y
le other men got we'll. O
II did have some faith in that chap" ex-
aimed Jim, "just leetle bit until he axed
y symptoms. That floored me. The idea
sending two hundred miles for doctor to
ak in on ye and not be able to tell symp- =
ms from the all firedest backache man
er had, topped off with chills galloping up q
d down the spine wall. I'm only sorry Il Il
at you moved the procession on him afore l
was able to head it," IL
Stock Statistics. Sy