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This title in other formats:Frontier Medicine: From the Atlantic to the Pacific, 1492-1941by David Dary
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:In his new book, David Dary, one of our leading social historians, gives us a fascinating, informative account of American frontier medicine from our Indian past to the beginning of World War II, as the frontier moved steadily westward from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific Ocean. He begins with the early arrivals to our shores and explains how their combined European-taught medical skills and the Indians’ well-developed knowledge of local herbal remedies and psychic healing formed the foundation of early American medicine. We then follow white settlement west, learning how, in the 1720s, seventy-five years before Edward Jenner’s experiments with smallpox vaccine, a Boston doctor learned from an African slave how to vaccinate against the disease; how, in 1809, a backwoods Kentucky doctor performed the first successful abdominal surgery; how, around 1820, a Missouri doctor realized quinine could prevent as well as cure malaria and made a fortune from the resulting pills he invented. Using diaries, journals, newspapers, letters, advertisements, medical records, and pharmacological writings, Dary gives us firsthand accounts of Indian cures; the ingenious self-healings of mountain men; home remedies settlers carried across the plains; an early “HMO” formed by Wyoming ranchers and cowboys to provide themselves with medical care; the indispensable role of country doctors and midwives; the fortunes made from patent medicines and quack cures; the contributions of army medicine; Chinese herbalists; the formation of the American Medical Association; the first black doctors; the first women doctors; and finally the early-twentieth-century shift to a formal scientific approach to medicine that by the postwar period had for the most part eliminated the trial-and-error practical methods that were at the center of frontier medicine. A wonderful—often entertaining—overview of the complexity, energy, and inventiveness of the ways in which our forebears were doctored and how our medical system came into being. Review:"Scurvy, contaminated water and challenging environments were among the medical problems faced by frontier settlers, who resorted to the rough-and-ready treatments of herbal and traditional medicines, quack concoctions and whatever worked. This is the story prolific western writer Dary (The Oregon Trail) provides in a deeply researched, anecdotal history. Fourteen chapters range from 'Indian Medicine' and 'In Western Towns' to 'Quacks' and 'Midwives and Women Doctors.' A skilled storyteller, Dary fills each chapter with tales of doctors (not always well trained) and patients, colorful events, important discoveries and a seemingly endless pharmacopeia of herbal recipes and drugs, beliefs and often gruesome medical procedures. Dary agrees with today's experts that doctors in that era who practiced 'heroic medicine' — bleeding, purging, administering emetics and toxic metals such as mercury and arsenic — did more harm than good. Fortunately, even quacks were too expensive for most settlers, who preferred home remedies. Dary argues that traditional Native American treatments were less harmful and probably more effective. Readers looking for a more insightful history of medicine should choose one by Roy Porter, but this collection of stories of frontier healers will satisfy many readers. 81 illus." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:Among the first things exchanged by European settlers and Native Americans were diseases and medical treatments. The Europeans gave the natives measles, yellow fever and smallpox; when the Indians tried to cure these contagions with traditional methods, such as bringing people together in sweat houses, they only spread the diseases more rapidly. But Native American remedies did seem to help with other... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Review:“Bear attacks. Syphilis. Bullet wounds. Malaria. Scalpings. Cholera. Arrows shot into the skull. Scurvy. Rabies. Ax mishaps. Crushing by moving wagon on wheels. Outsize tumors. Snake bites. . . David Dary relates the story of Westward expansion while examining these misfortunes, and many others, from the point of view of men and women who tried to heal the often ruinously injured. The results are both a horror show and undeniably engrossing: “MASH” meets Edgar Allan Poe. He knows his material cold, and his narrative accumulates authority and dignity as it rolls along. As he piles story upon story and anecdote upon anecdote, you’ll find yourself walking around the house reading horrific bits out loud to anyone who will listen, to the great distress of the squeamish.” Dwight Garner, The New York Times Review:“Masterly . . . enthralling . . . [Dary] does an admirable job of pulling together stories about health care as practiced by the Native Americans, Lewis and Clark, Civil War doctors and even 20th-century quacks. Moving briskly from one episode to the next, Mr. Dary is particularly effective at showing us the strengths and foibles of early American doctors, an often suspect class of professionals who now and again did more harm than healing. It is entertaining, enlightening material.” —Ira Rutkow, The Wall Street Journal Synopsis:Dary offers this fascinating, informative, and consistently surprising account of American medicine in its myriad forms, from the nation's Indian past to the beginning of World War II. About the AuthorDavid Dary is the author of more than a dozen books including Cowboy Culture, Entrepreneurs of the Old West, The Santa Fe Trail, and The Oregon Trail. He is the recipient of two Cowboy Hall of Fame Wrangler Awards, two Western Writers of America Spur Awards, and WWA’s Owen Wister Award for lifetime achievement, the Westerners International Best Nonfiction Book Award, and the Oklahoma Center for the Book 2008 Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award. He lives in Norman, Oklahoma. Table of ContentsPreface Chapter One: Indian Medicine Chapter Two: Early American Medicine Chapter Three: Over the Appalachians Chapter Four: Beyond the Mississippi Chapter Five: Fur Traders and Trappers Chapter Six: On the Oregon Trail Chapter Seven: Among the Soldiers Chapter Eight: On Homestead and Ranch Chapter Nine: In Western Towns Chapter Ten: Going West for Your Health Chapter Eleven: Midwives and Women Doctors Chapter Twelve: Patent Medicines Chapter Thirteen: Quacks Chapter Fourteen: Into the Twentieth Century Glossary Appendix: Epidemics in North America, 1616–1950 Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Index What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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