The mainstream medical treatments of the time were Of the native plants of North America from the Indians. “Indian Doctors” who claimed to have learned the medical properties Pepper, that were originally sold as patent medicines. Roots in the 1800s, as do some familiar soft drinks, including Coca-Cola andĭr. The current popularity of allopathic and naturopathic medicine has its Treat the cause of the pain), and, later in the century, delivering electric Relieve pain (which did sometimes offer temporary relief but did nothing to Vegetarian diets such as only eating apples or bread, using hypnotism to Wrapping them in wet sheets for hours at a time, restricting patients to narrow Some of the bizarre treatments prescribed by NineteenthĬentury quacks included placing patients in bathtubs full of cold water or Predictably, the 1800s became a golden age for Mid-1800s that several states stopped certifying and licensing doctors -Īnybody could put up a sign and call themselves a doctor, and a lot of folks Physicians, as a profession, were held in such low regard during the early and No real idea of what they were doing when it came to curing disease. It was more or less an open secret by then that the medical professionals had Most people wanted when they were sick was to be treated by a doctor, because Medicine, or the Poor Man’s Friend and the Family Hand Book. Nineteenth Century were home medical references such as Gunn’s Domestic In a hospital with an open wound or sore would almost certainly contract anĪs a result, some of the best-selling books of the Places of healing - they were for the poor, the dying, and the insane. They did not change clothes, clean their instruments, or even wash their handsĪfter treating one patient and before moving on to another. Infected their own patients by spreading germs from one person to another, as Treating soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars, that wounds contaminated withĭirt, bullet fragments, or other foreign matter would fester, turn gangrenous,ĭoctors and medical students often unknowingly They had only recently realized, thanks to French battlefield physicians The doctors of that time had no idea that infection andĭisease were caused by microscopic organisms such as bacteria and viruses, and Medicine in the mid-1800s you will need to accept a completely different way of Medical professionals who keep us healthy are among the most respected men andįorget everything you know, because to understand We watch surgeons replace internal organs on cable television. We all know about germs, antibiotics, and Today, we all have the same basic idea of what Each family should have a box of physicing pills, a quart of castor oil, a quart of the best rum and a large vial of peppermint essence.” -Elizabeth Dixon Smith Laid in our flour, cheese, crackers and medicine, for no one should travel this road without medicine, for they are almost sure to have the summer complaint.

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