Imagine a typical ordinary day in the Old West. Saloon fights, shootings, bandits, robberies, stagecoaches, mining accidents, diseases…And I’m mentioning these without much thinking, my dear! The way of life and the conditions of the Wild West were definitely risky.
And when something bad—like the above—happened, people would need…medical treatment! And who would treat them?
Well, doctors of the Old West. Who were called physicians.
So today my dear, prepare to be shocked…
Of course, things were way different than they are today—and I’m grateful for that. A doctor back then could easily prescribe a mercury compound to a sick person that not only it would not help his condition, but also it would probably make the person’s teeth fall.
That is why many people who lived back then claimed that the doctor’s work was the devil’s work. Many doctors of the Wild West performed some kind of surgery—wait for it—without anesthesia!
People tended to be afraid of the medical treatment much more than their injury or sickness. But can we blame them?
The most shocking thing I found out in my research was that most of the Frontier doctors were untrained. They had no previous medical experience or any experience at all. And just like that, they were physicians. Or to say it better, they called themselves physicians…
They were self-taught and many times they performed surgery without even having seen one before in their life. Some of them had perhaps read one or two books written by healers of their previous era, but we can understand that this wasn’t a relief to anyone. Healers and druids might have known some important things about treatments, herbs and homemade medicines back then, but they weren’t scientists in any case.
Well, we can imagine that, if the majority of doctors was like that during the Frontier Era, the medicines were even worse. The patients were treated with purgatives or drugs. Their doctors claimed that purgatives would clean up their entire system, and make the sickness go away. Of course, the sickness didn’t bother…
The other option back then was drugs. Strong, powerful medicines that caused the patient dizziness, delusions, trembling and numbness. Those drugs were also very expensive. A single ounce of each could cost more than a horse, or a cow back then. Quinine or Ipecac were especially wanted. Most of the time, the effect of the drugs wasn’t the patient’s cure.
It was strongly believed that strong-smelling and vile-tasting were also very effective treatments. Drinking sulfur, for example, was considered to do good in everything. Instead of drinking milk, for example, people of the Western Era were drinking sulfur or other strong stuff.
Steam or frozen baths, weird diets and Indian herbs were also widely popular. Very few of them actually helped the sick people though.
And now it’s time to tell you about the famous calomel!
It was the drug made of mercury that was supposed to cleanse the patient’s system, but also had another effect…It made the patient’s teeth fall.
Bloodletting or just bleeding was another treatment method. It was thought something like purging. The patient should let the disease flow through his blood.
Homemade bandages, knives and alcohol would easily be found in a physician’s bag. Alcohol was thought to be a very good painkiller and was offered to the patients in any case. It didn’t matter what you had—it did matter what you drunk. Whiskey in most cases. What else?!
A “physician” would perform “surgery” everywhere. At the kitchen table, at the saloon, at home. Many times, his tools were rusty or not cleaned properly, but still, he would perform the surgery.
Needless to say that except for alcohol, there wasn’t any painkiller available back then. Therefore, a patient had to suffer the surgery without any anesthesia at all.
In my research, I found examples of real experiences in the Old Western medical treatments. Among others, I was shocked to read about:
There were many cases in which physicians were examining the bodies of deceased people, in order to know the human body and understand its remarkable functions and organs.
It is kind of ghoulish, but back in those days, there wasn’t any other way to explore and discover human anatomy and the miracle of the human organism. That was how anatomy and biology were developed after all.
In conclusion, we may say “good old times” when talking about the Old Western Era ,sweetie, but the truth is that when it came to medical treatments things were terrible—and terrifying, if you ask me!
Thank you for being here with me once again! I appreciate your love and support!
I would love to hear your thoughts once again! So please feel free to share them with me! You know how! 😉
Written by Cassidy Hanton
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