What Was Going To The Doctor Like In The Old West?

Wild West doctors often practiced medicine without a formal degree. Some "doctors" hadno formal training at all.The lack of medical professionals on the frontier let self-taught healers perform advanced medicine.

In 1827, a former janitor performed the first successful C-section in the West. John Richmond worked as a janitor at a medical school, listening to lectures. He called himself a doctor and performed a C-section without prior experience. Richmond wrote, "Finding that whatever was done must be done soon, and feeling a deep and solemn sense of my responsibility, with only a case of common pocket instruments, about one o’clock at night I commenced the Caesarean Section... The patient never complained of pain during the whole course of the cure."

Whether the procedure was successful remains debatable. Richmond's account of the operation is discussed. While the mothersurvived the procedure.The child did not survive. Author Jacqueline Wolf wrote that the patient begged Richmond to stop the pain in Wolf's book.Cesarean sections show an American history of risk, technology, and outcome.

Even trained doctors used dangerous treatments in the nineteenth century.Dr. Daniel Drake.A founder of Ohio's first medical college, Dr. Drake strongly advised bleeding for patients "whose pulse is nearly imperceptible." If the doctor's lancet could not start blood flow from a vein, Dr. Drake suggested cutting the jugular.

Blister treatments involved peeling skin off patients to rub on irritants. Some doctors wrapped cotton around the patient's skin to burn it away; this was an intensely painful "treatment."

Frontier treatments were sometimes riskier than the illness itself. Doctors treated many issues with purgatives intended to clean the patient's system. They often gave huge doses of ipecac to make patients vomit. Worse still was calomel, aMercury compound.It was so strong that it weakened patients' gums and caused their teeth to fall out.

By the 1840s, frontier doctors started using quinine, an effective and safe substance. However, it stayed very expensive. One ounce of quinine cost more than a fat cow.

Doctors performed autopsies. They declared notorious outlaws dead after shootouts. Sometimes, they had to do unusual surgeries to save patients.A frontier doctor wrote“I slit the throat of the child choking with diphtheria, opening the windpipe and kept it open with fishhooks.”

Superstitious people sometimes thought doctors performed the devil's work.Superstitious people sometimes believed doctors were performing the devil's work.A doctor performed surgery on a Sunday morning. His patient, who had a large ovarian tumor, had surgery without anesthesia. A crowd gathered outside the office, calling the doctor "butchering a woman." The superstitious crowd did not stop the surgeon. The patient survived a 25-minute procedure that removed a 22-pound tumor from her abdomen.

Doctor's offices changed on the frontier. In boom towns, doctors set up offices wherever they could.Dr. George Goodfellow.Dr. Goodfellow set up his first office at the Golden Eagle Brewing Company in Tombstone. After a fire destroyed the building, Dr. Goodfellow moved his office to the Crystal Palace Saloon, the building that housed US Deputy Marshal Virgil Earp's office.

Frontier doctors sometimes defended their territory. WhenDr. Edward Willis.Dr. Willis moved to Hangtown, the town's only other doctor. He had no medical training. He challenged Dr. Willis to a duel. The untrained doctor lost the duel and his life.

Anyone could call themselves a doctor on the frontier by hanging a shingle. Untrained "doctors" might promote strange treatments that caused harm. Doctors might prescribesecret Native American herbs.or odd diets to treat all medical conditions. Others pushed baths as a cure-all. Many advised removing bad blood from sick patients, often using bleeding or leeches.

Many pioneers thought the most effective medicines tasted the worst. Some doctors then suggested drinking sulfur to treat sickness.

Visiting a doctor could end your life in the Wild West. Consider, for example,One doctor treated malaria.:

Carry your patient through the passage between the two cabins. Strip off all his clothes so he can lie... in the cold air and on a bare sacking. Then, pour successive buckets of cold spring water over him until he has a strong chance of shaking.

If the patient's tremors grew too large, the doctor gave him opium.

Another doctor suggested bleeding patients from the jugular. This practice almost certainly caused high death rates.

Dr. Quinn was not the only medicine woman in the West. The Old West offered women new chances.

In 1880,Dr. Bethenia Owens-Adair.She earned her MD from the University of Michigan's medical school. Dr. Owens-Adair moved to Oregon, practicing medicine in Portland and Astoria.

Dr. Owens-Adair wrote that practicing medicine in the West presented a big problem. He said, “I did my professional work as well as I could in that remote spot; I never refused a call, day or night, rain or shine. I often had to walk through trails choked with thick brush, blocked by logs and roots, and through muddy, flooded land in gum boots.”

Most doctors in the West lacked a medical degree. In 1880, Tombstone had 2,000 people.Twelve doctors.Doctors provided care for the residents. However, eight doctors lacked a medical license.

Until at least the 1860s, most frontier doctors lacked formal medical knowledge or training.Frontier doctors had no formal medical knowledge or training.One scholar estimates only 25% of frontier doctors finished medical school. This meant medical treatments ranged from new advances to completely made-up treatments.

Doctors in the Wild West did not earn high pay. In the early 19th century, doctors usually charged 25-50 cents for a visit.Doctors charged 25-50 cents for a visit.Longer visits, including overnight stays, could cost up to a dollar.

Many patients could not pay doctors with cash. Instead, they paid with goods or services. Doctors sometimes accepted promises instead of money. Some doctors offered a discount on medical services or house calls if patients fed their horses.Doctors offered a discount on medical services for patients who fed their horses.Doctors offered a discount on house calls if patients fed their horses.

Frontier doctors did more than just treat patients; they also made and sold their own medicines.

In some Old West towns, the physician also acted as the druggist.The physician also served as the druggist.Lack of qualified professionals in the community caused this. Drugstores stocked leeches that doctors used to bleed patients. Druggists mixed their own medicines from raw herbs, leaves, and roots.

Doctors James Robinson and Ella Ford met in medical school. After they both earned their degrees in 1878, they moved to Jacksonville, Oregon, where they opened a drugstore along with their medical offices. Sadly, Ella died in childbirth just a year after the couple started their practice.They opened a drugstore along with their medical offices.Ella passed away in childbirth just one year after the couple started their practice.

Doctors traveled long distances to see patients. Scottish immigrant Dr. Forbes Barclay traveled across Oregon and Washington to treat patients, riding a horse and sometimes hiring a Native American guide for a canoe.Scottish immigrant Dr. Forbes Barclay.Dr. Forbes Barclay crossed Oregon and Washington to treat patients, riding a horse and sometimes hiring a Native American guide to take him by canoe.

Doctors often performed emergency surgery on the spot when they reached an accident scene. One surgeon described operating on a patient lying on a whiskey barrel while the doctor sat on a tree stump.One surgeon described operating on a patient.The surgeon used one hand to operate and waved off flies with the other.