Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1896-12-05
DOCTORS IN COLONIAL DAYS.
Doctors Bills of Some Connecticut Valley
Settlements.


Settlements.
Educated physicians We're so few
that almost perforcc tho clergy.
men were found shining forth in
what Mather. in the "Magnalia,
called the 'angelical conjunction
combining minister and physician
in one. 1t is also pleasant TO note
that the woman highly skilled i'll
medicine had also come upon the
scene as early as 1881, for the wife
of Rev. John Eliot was one of those
possessing skill in both medicine
and surgery, but attended the sick
and MANNED without reward, and
later on, at the close of King Philips
war, Mrs. Allyn was allowed ego for
attending sick and wounded soldiers
by the Connecticut council. Also
the wife of William Miller of North.
ampton sometimes acted as a sur
geon, and in 1858, in an authentic
history Of Virginia, "a gentlewom-
an, a noted female doctress," is
mentioned, who cured those bitten
by mad dogs.
Many of the towns along the Con.
necticut river were without any res
ident physician for long periods, 80
and 40 years, but it was almost in
evitable that in their Xioneer life
there should DO calls for ghe knowl-
edge and services of a bonesetter-
and there are men just as surely in
spired to do this work as are the
dictionary makers and the collectors
of queer and useless articles. Their
vivisection must have been confined
to the killing and cutting up of do
nestle and wild animals for food,
for Eliot, writing in 1647, says, 1--WE
never had but one anatomy (skele-
ton) in tho country, which Mr.. Giles
Firnin did make and rede upon
WE'LL But Mr.. Firmin was in adj
vance of his time in medicine and.
found it scarcely paying business,
for he writes to Governor Winthrop:
~ am strongly set upon to study
divinitie. My studyes else must be
lost, for physik is but meene
helpe." And he went back to Eng
land.
For half a century after the settle-
ment of the four towns NOrthamp-
ton Hadlev. Hatfield and Deerfield
the average annual expense of doc
tors bills was not more than 5000,
including those who were wounded
by Indians. In 1727 the town of
Hadley voted to give ESQ toward in
ducing "a good bonesetter' to locate
among them if other towns would
join them. We occasionally read of
some of those tough old pioneers
living to a great age, but let no one
imagine that those former days"
were better than ours. The average
Of human life was far shorter than
now, and plain food and early hours
were the rule, and the mischief of
intoxicating drinks was almost I'M
known. Only those who can realize
how ansesthetics alone save life-for
simple pain kills, if severe enough
can appreciate how suffering men
and women laid down their lives
untimely, because they had been
born too soon, for, with all the flip
pant sneers at doctors and their in
evitable limitations, there is no ques-
ton that a we'll educated physician,
also endowed with common sense, is
a valuable man in any community.
The above sketch includes palpa-
BILE diseases capable of being cured
by tangible remedies and does not |
touch on the large province of the
disease of faith and fascination,
and enhanced by a pro-
found belief in the abilities of what
were called the powers of dark
ness, among which was witchcraft,
and the forces which were brought
to bear against it.-Independent.