Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1942-09-25
FOOTBALL KEPT
PIONEER DOCTOR
AT HIS STUDIES
DIR. LAWRENCE S. PACKARD OF
WHITEHALL RELATES HIS
EARLY EXPERIENCES

n IeilOW VINO look up the study OF
medicine only because 1t meant he
could remain in school and play foot
ball Is today one Of Montana's pioneer
physicians.
DR.. Lawrence S. Packard, for over
10 years a doctor in Whitehall and
the Jefferson valley, had no intention
Of following in his fathers footsteps
and becoming a country doctor, but
a love for football kept him in school
and he "drifted" into medicine and has
been at it ever since.
DR.. Packard came to the Treasure
state to practice in February, 1902,
settling at Whitehall when that town
was combination of a roaring min
ing camp and boisterous COW town. He
was somewhat startled at the number
of saloons in the little town and
thought at first that his stay would
be only temporary, but the town and
its people grew on him and there he
stayed.
The son Of an Iowa country doctor.
who did not favor similar life for
his offspring DR.. Packard as a youth
was planning to enter some far differ
ent field than that of country doc
tor, but circumstances interviewed.
When his family moved from Iowa to
Nebraska he was high school athlete
OF Is, whose conception of heaven was
place where football games were al
ways in progress. In order to play
football he stayed in school and by
the time he was 10 a friend had sold
him on the idea of premedic study
He graduated from the University of
Nebraska and took his internship at
the Alexian Bros. hospital in Chicago
Husker Football Player
AS a football player and a member
of the University of Nebraska team,
DR.. Packard made a trip to Montana
in 1894 to play the Butte Athletic
club on the Fourth of July. He said
the playing conditions were ideal as
there was a fine snowstorm, which
made the season seem quite normal.
He said that he remembered Butte
as the brawling town OF repute, but
that his thrill was seeing the noun
tains. A few years later when he was
ready to enter the practice of medi-
cine, it was not hard for friend, the
late Ike o. Pace OF Whitehall, to con-
vince him that the jefferson valley
camp needed a physician and that he
WoulO 1iil d 3ulllC l4iSlS
Medicine as practiced in Montana
in the early 1905 was vastly differ
ent thing from the streamlined pro-
fession of today, Dr.. Packard says.
He covered the vast reaches Of the
Jefferson valley on horseback and with
team of which he kept two. A trip
of 40 miles was a jaunt in the sum-
mertime and a commonplace hardship
to be met with philosophy in he bitter
months of the winter, when he often
went on calls with the temperature at
40 degrees or more below zero
The MayfloWer mine, which was the
property of the late Senator w. A.
Clark, was running at the time, and
was the principal industry of the re-
gion, although even then there was
stockraising on a large scale.
The MayfloWer was closed soon after
that when the cautious copper king
felt he had sunk all the money in it
to open a new vein that was warrant
ed. He had already taken out S15,O00,-
900 in gold. Many of the old miners
had faith in the mine and claimed it
was as rich as ever Their faith, DR..
Packard says, was justified, when it
was reopened few years ago to be-
come the richest gold-producing mine
in the state, and last year produced
SIS percent of all the yellow metal
that was mined in the state.
Many of the miners, as miners are
expected to be, were hearty and rols-
tering men and many were the Ill
nesses and injuries among them, DR..
Packard reveals. 1t was in 1903 when
the Milwaukee was building through
the region, however, that he got his
real practice in caring for injured
men, Human life was held very cheap
and the construction bosses did not
spare their men and the men them
selves, many of them hot-blooded
Slavs, engaged in blood feuds that at
times left them literally in ribbons.
Knifings were a daily event and DR..
Packard says that strangely enough
men who would seem to be mortally
hurt would recover to engage in other
fights, perhaps fatal on second Try
The nearest hospital was at Butte
and it was a killing trip not only on
the patient, but on horses and pnySl-
clans, too, when it was necessary 10
make it. A patient who survived the
trip, no matter how desperate his con-
dition, would usually recover, Or.
Packard relates, his inference being
that anybody who could stand 1t was
too tough to Kill.
Cold 4O-Mile Trip
On one occasion DR.. Packard re-
called that he was called to ranch
40 miles from Whitehall to take care
of pneumonia patient. With a driver
he set out with team. Buffalo ropes
two of them, were over their legs 10
keep them from freezing and theH
warmth was augmented by lanterns
which they held between their knees.
The road was a trail winding up a
gully, but they made it and the pa
tient lived. On another occasion on
another long trip to Pony, he started
with driver and team. Roads became
impossible, the sleigh was abandoned
and the horses were unhltched ana
the final part of the trip made on
horseback, with the horses fiounoer-
ing through drifts and dropping WIN
exhaustion when it was ended. ihat
patient lived, too, the doctor salo.
Hundreds of jefferson valley resi-
doote x1,ara broI,ubt into the WOrlQ by