Frontier Medicine

In my novella SALVATION BRIDE, the heroine Laura Slade, is a trained doctor. Set in the 1870’s, this was not common, but possible. By this time, several medical schools admitted women. Laura, however, didn’t. Instead, she apprenticed under her Uncle John, who had been to medical school and served as a doctor in the Civil War.

More common in the 19th Century women were home-trained healers and midwives, who learned the art of healing from their mothers and grandmothers. My current work in progress takes place in the 1860’s shortly after the Civil War. The hero, Garrison and the heroine, Sammie, are on a wagon train heading West. Sammie has been trained as a healer by her mother. She takes with her on the trip her medicine chest.

The chest would contain such items as those listed in BLEED, BLISTER, AND PURGE by Volney Steele, M.D. Common household remedies would be “feverfew, fleabane, boneset, rhubarb, oak of Jerusalem, thyme [and] marjoram,” (page 138). A few store-bought items would also be included: Opium tincture or laudanum and whiskey for pain and surgeon’s plaster to bind broken limbs (the latter comes in handy when Garrison breaks a bone during the trip).

Sammie would know how to make poultices to relieve pain, help heal burns and possibly, even, to prevent pregnancy. She’d make plaster of mustard to “ease the ache of bruises, arthritis, and pleurisy.” She might even apply sugar to wounds, once commonly known to dry out a fresh wound and inhibit the growth of bacteria. (page 143).

Cholera was the most common and the deadliest disease to sweep through a wagon train or settlement. It wasn’t understood at the time that cholera was caused by contaminated drinking water. The best way to fight the disease was to replace fluids ‘volume to volume” as the patient suffered from severe diarrhea. However, this treatment was not well known. Opium, if available, was also given to “relieve the pain and slow down the increased bowel action and cramps,” (page 80).

Diphtheria, measles, small pox and scarlet fever were all deadly diseases, especially among children, with no cures but to wait it out. Diphtheria, in particular, was the most dreaded. Highly contagious, a single case could start an epidemic, resulting in a high number of children dying when a “pseudo-membrane in the throat and pharynx…obstructed the windpipe and shut off air to the lungs.” If the child survived this, she might still die from heart failure, caused when a potent toxin was secreted that effected the heart, (page 264).

One often overlooked disease on the frontier was scurvy, which was almost as deadly to the immigrants as cholera. With a common diet of corn meal, flour, beans and boiled or salted beef and few fresh vegetables and fruit, scurvy ran rampant in the West. Scurvy affects the overall health of the patient, causing extreme fatigue, nausea, pain in the muscles and joints of the body, bleeding of the gums (oftentimes resulting in the loss of teeth) and hair and skin become dry. The simple cure for scurvy is the intake of Vitamin C, but the correlation between diet and scurvy was not discovered until the late 1800’s. Ironically, a common native plant along the trail, watercress, was full of Vitamin C and would have been a simple cure to this disease, if the immigrants had only known.

Many an immigrant’s diary is filled with entries of sickness and death on the journey. In COVERED WAGON WOMEN by Kenneth Holmes, two journalists note such occurrences. Anna King, on page 42, relates, “I wrote to you at Fort Larim that the whooping cough and measles went through our camp, and after we took the new route a slow, lingering fever prevailed….Eight of our two families have gone to their long home. Upwards to fifty died on the new route.”

Sallie Hester reports “We had two deaths in our train within the past week of cholera – young men going West to seek their fortune. We buried them on the banks of the Blue River, far from home and friends,” (page 237).

By today’s standards, medicine in the 19th Century was crude in the best of hospitals. On the frontier, it was downright rudimentary. As much as I’d love to give my heroines insight to the knowledge we have now, I shall have to resist and let them heal their patience with the remedies tired and true at the times.

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I’ll give away a copy of SALVATION BRIDE, an best-seller from The Wild Rose Press to one lucky commenter. Also, anyone leaving a comment on my blog today will be eligible for the Seduced by History monthly prize, a book bag full of romance novels (see left for the details).

Anna Kathryn Lanier

Where Tumbleweeds Hang Their Hats
http://www.aklanier.com/
http://annakathrynlanier.blogspot.com/

Covered Wagon Women II

I didn't go into writing planning to author books on the American West. My first novels were not set in that region. I sort of fell into it by accident. Now, I've discovered a love for the region and certain time periods. I have a story on the back burner about a couple forced to marry so they can travel on a wagon train to Montana. Their plan is to divorce when they arrive, but of course, that ain't gonna happen! But even as a panster writer (one who doesn't do story boards or character sketches) I do have to plan and I do have to do research. After all, I've never traveled by wagon train. So, I turn to books that relay true life tales of adventure and heroism. I have a couple which have reprinted letters and diaries of women who crossed the country on foot, horseback and covered wagon.

One book in particular is COVERED WAGON WOMEN: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trials, 1840-1849 by Kenneth L. Holmes. Mr. Holmes has culled libraries and museums to find actual letters and diaries to transcribe in his book. He also did biographical research on the women who wrote the stories he relates. It's a fantastic read.

One story I am fond of in his book was written by a young woman, Sallie Hester. Certain recounts of her diary say she was twelve when she wrote it, but Mr. Holmes's research shows she was actually the more mature age of fourteen. Sallie traveled from Bloomington, Indiana to California in 1849. Her parents, two brothers and a sister accompanied her on the journey. Most of her entries were done on Sunday, a day her wagon train nearly always rested.

Sallie's family leaves their home on March 20th and arrives at Vernon, California on October 6th. Their journey starts when they travel by steamboat to St. Joseph, Missouri to meet up with the wagon train. The boat ride is full of its own adventures, as it continually hit sandbars, finally causing the passengers to disembark ten miles from their destination.

Within weeks of leaving St. Joseph, the train finds itself in hostile Indian territory. The wagons circle at night, with the animals kept inside the circle while families pitch tents outside the circle. Men are on guard throughout the night to keep the Indians from killing or stealing the livestock. Sallie and her family sleep inside their wagon on a feather bed.

They “have a cooking stove made of sheet iron, a portable table, tin plates and cups, cheap knives and forks, camp stools, etc.” for the trip. They “live on bacon, ham, rice, dried fruits, molasses, packed butter, bread, coffee, tea and milk as we have our own cows.” Occasionally fresh game is killed and fresh fish caught to add variety to the meals.

The trip, as they all are, is full of hazards. One of the things the travelers have to contend with is cholera. Sallie's train is hit several times by this disease and she reports in her June 3rd entry, “A great many deaths; graves are everywhere.” Her family seems to fair well the entire trip, however. Another hazard is crossing rivers. Sallie reports on June 21st, during a crossing of the Platte River, “A lady and four children were drowned through the carelessness of those in charge of the ferry.”

On July 4th, like a great many other travelers (re: my April 17th blog entry at 'Chatting with Anna Kathryn.') Sallie's group takes a “cut-off,” which should be quicker and faster than the regular route. Instead they have “neither wood nor water for fifty-two miles.”

These days, we just jump into our car and we're off to visit here, there and everywhere. I live 250 miles from my eldest daughter. I can make the trip in about five hours. On August 20th, Sallie notes, “We are now 348 miles from the mines. We expect to travel that distance in three weeks and a half.”

On September 4th she relays their journey through the desert. Though they supply themselves with extra water and cut grass for the cattle, it isn't enough and some of their cattle give out. Cries of “another ox down” stop the train as the men unyoke the dying animal so it can follow or not, as it wills. The baying of the tired and thirsty cattle fills the night as they try desperately to reach water before they lose any more animals. Finally, they see the Truckee. “Saved at last! Poor cattle; they kept on mooing, even when they stood knee deep in water,” Sallie writes.

On September 8th, she writes, “Traveled fourteen miles; crossed the Truckee twelve times.” Can you imagine? On September 21st she describes the train “descending a tremendous hill. We let the wagons down with ropes...At Sleepy Hollow we again let the wagons down the mountain with ropes.”

On October 6th, she announces that the train has reached Vernon, California.“Our party of fifty, now only thirteen, has at last reached this haven of rest.” Her family crosses the river and makes camp in Fremont for the winter. They live in a two room shanty for more than six months. It will do for a temporary home, though. Sallie seems to enjoy her time in Fremont...with a scarcity of girls, she is invited to many outings. In April of 1850, her father travels to San Jose and decides to bring the family there, which is where they settle.

Sallie continues her diary until she marries on October 5, 1871 (which makes her 35 years old). She writes “I was married to James K. Maddock of Eureka, Nevada...and now Dear Journal, I give thee up. No more jottings down of gay and festive scenes—the past is gone and the future before me. 'So mote it be.'”

I think it sad that Sallie thought that as a married woman she had no more insight of her world to offer.

As mentioned above, I wrote of another Covered Wagon Woman on my own blog on Friday, April 17th. You can read about Tabitha Brown's wagon trip at http://annakathrynlanier.blogspot.com.

Anna Kathryn Lanier
More Than Tumbleweeds
Heartwarming, Sensual Westerns
http://www.aklanier.com/