Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1908-01-15
PHYSICIANS OF OLD
THE PIONEER DOCTOR WAS IN
CLASS BY HIMSELF.
In Spite Of His Many Handlcaps, He
Battled Successfully with Disease
His Limited Knowledge Of
Materia Medica.

The pioneer physician waged an I'M
equal war against disease because of
his limited knowledge and equipment
for fighting it. He was something of
botanist and gathered many Of the
herbs he used in the woods during
mild months, and from his book OF
recipes compounded many a drastic
dose. He relied largely on his com
mon sense, the rarest quality to be
found in men to this day.
This self-reliance built up an indi-
vidualty, a strong personality, often
peculiar and sometimes eccentric. He
knew his patients, he studied their pc
culiarities as we'll as their ailments,
and the combined knowledge gave him
a marked degree of success.
The early doctor had limited knowl-
edge of materia medica. His supply
consisted of medicines of his own COM
pounding: also calomel, Dover's pow
ders. lobelia and tartar emetic, which
: took hold powerful, blistering salve,
pair of old turkeys for extracting
the most recalcitrant root, and spring
and thumb lances for bleeding. Every
body had to be bled sick or well.
The treatment of some cases-well,
typhoid fever, for instance, was heroic
and unique. Every particle Of water
was taken away from the patient being
consumed by the awful fever Wasted
with the disease and weakened by its
ravages, he was bled for half-pint to
quart to further weaken him.
He was dosed with calomel till he
was a robins egg blue and his teeth
loosened. But, Notwithstanding, he
generally got well, in spite of the doc.
tor, rather than with his assistance,
for he was of hardy race.
But this treatment was the excep-
ton rather than the rule. The doc
! tors doses were drastic and mainly
of his own compromising, and being
vegetable and from the earth, earthly,
they were well suited to mans needs.
Bleeding commenced to go out OF
general fashion about 1850. Twenty
five cents was the bleeding fee. Visits
in town, similar amount, and coun-
try rides, rs cents mile; obstetric
fee, five dollars. There were few med
ical colleges in the land and some OF
the most successful country doctors
never saw the inside of one.
When the law was passed requiring
the registering of diplomas with the
prothonotary of the judicial district,
some of the most expert of the old
| fashioned doctors had none to regis
ter. The law allowed them to prac-
tice as before, which they did to the
end, which leads to the suspicion that
some of our best doctors are born, not
made.
No preliminary education was re-
quired. A man went and read in the
doctors office and a few textbooks
the early doctor had, followed his pre-
ceptor around and watched him care
fully, studying his book of recipes for
compromising dope.
Then the doctor started out his stu
dent on some or the simpler cases,
like measles, whooping cough and
mumps, till the young man thought
himself qualified to do the trick alone
and then went elsewhere and hung
out his sign with DR." in front of his
name.
1t is amazing to think how some OF
these doctors, with limited adVan'
tages and crude equipment, tied ar
teries, set difficult fractures, ampu
tated limbs by the light of barn Ian
terms with instruments and bandages
fshed out of saddlebags or greatcoat
pockets.
They must have been reeking with
germs, if there is anything in the germ
theory, and yet cases of blood poison