Frontier Medicine: From the Atlantic to the Pacific 1492-1941
Summary (from the publisher): In his new book, David Dary, one of our leading social historians, gives us a fascinating, informative account of American frontier medicine from our Indian past to the beginning of World War II, as the frontier moved steadily westward from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific Ocean.
He begins with the early arrivals to our shores and explains how their combined European-taught medical skills and the Indians’ well-developed knowledge of local herbal remedies and psychic healing formed the foundation of early American medicine.
We then follow white settlement west, learning how, in the 1720s, seventy-five years before Edward Jenner’s experiments with smallpox vaccine, a Boston doctor learned from an African slave how to vaccinate against the disease; how, in 1809, a backwoods Kentucky doctor performed the first successful abdominal surgery; how, around 1820, a Missouri doctor realized quinine could prevent as well as cure malaria and made a fortune from the resulting pills he invented.
Using diaries, journals, newspapers, letters, advertisements, medical records, and pharmacological writings, Dary gives us firsthand accounts of Indian cures; the ingenious self-healings of mountain men; home remedies settlers carried across the plains; an early “HMO” formed by Wyoming ranchers and cowboys to provide themselves with medical care; the indispensable role of country doctors and midwives; the fortunes made from patent medicines and quack cures; the contributions of army medicine; Chinese herbalists; the formation of the American Medical Association; the first black doctors; the first women doctors; and finally the early-twentieth-century shift to a formal scientific approach to medicine that by the postwar period had for the most part eliminated the trial-and-error practical methods that were at the center of frontier medicine.
A wonderful—often entertaining—overview of the complexity, energy, and inventiveness of the ways in which our forebears were doctored and how our medical system came into being.
He begins with the early arrivals to our shores and explains how their combined European-taught medical skills and the Indians’ well-developed knowledge of local herbal remedies and psychic healing formed the foundation of early American medicine.
We then follow white settlement west, learning how, in the 1720s, seventy-five years before Edward Jenner’s experiments with smallpox vaccine, a Boston doctor learned from an African slave how to vaccinate against the disease; how, in 1809, a backwoods Kentucky doctor performed the first successful abdominal surgery; how, around 1820, a Missouri doctor realized quinine could prevent as well as cure malaria and made a fortune from the resulting pills he invented.
Using diaries, journals, newspapers, letters, advertisements, medical records, and pharmacological writings, Dary gives us firsthand accounts of Indian cures; the ingenious self-healings of mountain men; home remedies settlers carried across the plains; an early “HMO” formed by Wyoming ranchers and cowboys to provide themselves with medical care; the indispensable role of country doctors and midwives; the fortunes made from patent medicines and quack cures; the contributions of army medicine; Chinese herbalists; the formation of the American Medical Association; the first black doctors; the first women doctors; and finally the early-twentieth-century shift to a formal scientific approach to medicine that by the postwar period had for the most part eliminated the trial-and-error practical methods that were at the center of frontier medicine.
A wonderful—often entertaining—overview of the complexity, energy, and inventiveness of the ways in which our forebears were doctored and how our medical system came into being.
Review: This work of non-fiction gives an overview of American frontier medicine from the Native Americans through the beginning of World War II. Drawing on research from a variety of sources including diaries, letters, advertisements, medical records, and pharmacological accounts, Dary provides an overview of medicine as practiced by fur traders, on the Oregon trail, among soldiers, on homesteads, by midwives, and insight into the use of quack medical practices.
The theme of this book illustrates that early American medical training was poor and unregulated and whether or not early Americans received timely, helpful, or appropriate care was largely up to luck and circumstances. Many Americans, particularly those living in isolated conditions on the frontier, took it upon themselves to learn rudimentary medical practices that could save their lives in the event of an accident. Antiquated practices such as bloodletting prevailed for many years and the advent of widely pedaled patented medicines, which may or may have any helpful effect, muddied the water of medical practice.
The topic of this book was clearly quite broad and, as a consequence, this book very much functions as a survey of early American medicine. Rather than providing deep insight into any one topic, it briefly overviews many topics, all of which could easily have their own book devoted to that particular subject. At times, the scattered nature of the book made it tedious to read. In particular, the chapter on Indian medicine was so fragmented that each paragraph leaped to another element of Indian medical practices, making it aggravating to read and extremely disjointed. However, given that one chapter is devoted to all Native American medical practices, I'm not sure how Dary could have improved the narrative flow.
The aspect of this book I appreciated the most are the anecdotes the author included that help illustrate the medical know-how (or more frequently lack of) of the day. For instance, it was incredible to read about the doctor who operated in 1809 to remove a massive tumor from his patient's ovaries. The patient was forced to endure this procedure with no anesthetic or pain medication other than prayer and watched as her intestines "rolled onto the wooden table beside her" (58). Remarkably, she survived the procedure. Dary also gives an overview of Hugh Glass, the mountain main whose attack by a bear was detailed in the movie The Revenant. I also appreciated the author's description of his grandfather who was a general practitioner in the nineteenth century and who likely inspired the writing of this book.
Stars: 3
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