Calomel and
Castor Oil
Swiiicliinp.4, in (hose days, an ailment
seeineil preferable to the cure.
By PEGGY PAYNE
li was all there in a very careful
hand — what to do about childbed
fever, sore throats, and gonorrhea.
It was a laboriously recorded cook¬
book of cures written in ink in a pen¬
manship notebook by one Dr. Willie
Jordan Battle of nineteenth century
Edgecombe County. North Carolina.
The twentieth century doctor of the
Bailey, North Carolina Country Doctor
Museum. Dr. Josephine Newell, char¬
acterizes the early American medics
and medical remedies in this way:
"They did a tremendous amount of
good with very little to work with."
And she points out that a great deal
of what they worked with was whiskey
— that and herbs.
There arc surprising pockets of
sophisticated knowledge in early medi¬
cal history.
Rcserpine is now used for high blood
pressure. Dr. Newell said. But rauwol-
fia root, which is basically the same
substance, was used long ago for bad
headaches. Digitalis comes from fox¬
glove. And there are Biblical references
to the use of foxglove for medicine.
This plant has been known since the
time of the early Egyptians.
There weren’t always fine drug
houses, she says. But people with high
fevers were once treated with molded
bread. Then bread gave way to peni¬
cillin.
Poor Johnny Pritchard!
Think a minute about the bedroom
of the kid who stayed home from
school with the flu. The TV is on. The
thermometer is next to a half-full glass.
The pile of dirty tissues is mounting,
along with the demands for an imagina¬
tive variety of snacks and amusements.
The eorly medicine od» promised help tor the
■hole ronge ot human Iroilty. The hapless fellow
pictured obovc wos promptly relieved ol chills
ond fever by tolling Ayer's Ague Cure.— (Old
od photos by Joel Arrington.!
Now imagine this scene, described in
a diary written by Mrs. Anna Pritchard
in 1 852. First they thought the boy had
overeaten. They gave him calomel,
then castor oil. But it soon became ap¬
parent that overeating was not the
problem. He had pneumonia.
"The rain was coming down in tor¬
rents and everyone in the house except
in one chamber was asleep. I assisted
Dr. P. to bleed the child from his arm.
He took a great deal of blood, then
gashed and cupped the chest where the
pain was."
Gashing and cupping meant first
heating a crystal over a flame and ap¬
plying it as suction to the cut. The pur¬
pose was to unseat the abscess. It was
painful. It was a procedure used for
generations.
Then the boy was given opium and
calomel and cumin seed injection,
which means an enema.
After that came leeching. "We
moistened John's breast with chicken
blood, but they would not bite."
Leeches were frequently used for the
bleeding of children. And bleeding was
a common surgical procedure.
Bleeding was simply the taking of
blood from a patient. It was used in
inflammations of the intestines, womb,
stomach, kidneys, etc. It was used for
asthma, coughs, headaches, rheuma¬
tism, apoplexy, epilepsy, and sciatic
pains. It was considered necessary in
treatment of bruises and other wounds
from falls or violent blows to the body.
The sufferer was as much to be
pitied for his treatment as for his dis¬
eases. "Poor little John," his mother
continued, "How weak and white and
pitiful he looked and how it smote my
heart to behold him." But that didn't
THE STATE. DCCCHOCR 1974
Nineteenrh century doctor» did much good with the meogre medicine» aioiloble to them. At the
Country Doctor Mu»cum, in Boiley, mony of the remedie* u»ed in thot period ore recalled in Ihu
ontique opothecory cobinet and in the odjoccnt herb gorden.— I Bruce Robert» photo.)
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