Position:Home>History> What would you do in winter if one of your family members fall ill/has an accide

"Upper Canada" was referred to as "British North America" in this period!.

Examples of typical medicines, bottled and packaged, purchased from the local apothecary (drugstore in town) before winter!. This list is "borrowed" from the list of medicines in Lewis and Clark's expedition, because that was about the same time frame as your question!. You may want to read up on the expedition for more details

Calomel - mercurial purgative for stomach problems

Laudanum - tincture of opium, used for pain relief

Jalap - mild purgative

alum - astringent and styptic

Peruvian Bark - base for quinine, an anti-fever used today to treat malaria

Rhubarb - mild laxative

cloves - flavoring and toothache relief



Galen- the early years

Galen’s initial humoral theory stood uncontested for about 1700 years!. Simply put, it stipulated that the body was made of four humors – blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile!. As long as these four humors were in balance, then one was healthy!. If not, then one was ill!.

Example – you have a chest cold!. Obviously, this is a buildup of excess phlegm, and the fever indicated your blood might be in excess!. You need to get rid of it in order to feel better!. Ergo, your doctor prescribed an expectorant, which helps you cough up the gunk!. He took some blood from your arm to help reduce the fever!. Hey, you feel better!.

Notice this theory treats symptoms, not necessarily the cause!.

Herbalism has been around from the very beginning!. There are a lot of herbs and plants whose features have been beneficial to human health!. All of them were categorized to one degree or another and incorporated into treatment programs by various cultures!. Almost fifty percent of the medicinals in the pharmacy handbooks were plant-based!.

Homeopathy took root early in the 1800s as an indirect protest to mainstream physicians (which were labeled "allopathic")!. Inconsistency in physician education, coupled with the exposees of downright quacks led to a general distrust of doctors and their smelly potions!. Add to this the principal treatments of Galenic theory (restoring fluid balance using bleeding, sweating puking and other forms of purging) and you can see why there was an initial reluctance to send for the doctor when some one got sick!.

Non-surgical treatment shifted from Galenical theory to "inflammation theory" by the 1850s!. It was now believed that specific diseases were caused by inflammations and congestions!. The purging and cathartics were moderated – phlebotomy (bleeding) faded from style, being considered now too impractical a treatment!. Disease was now considered to be based on inflammation, which caused dieases to be either sthenic or asthenic – sthenic meant the patient was excitable and had strong reactions to stimuli, asthenic meant the patient was languid, torpid, and unresponsive!. A patient could have the same ilness and shift from a sthenic to an asthenic phase – or even vice versa!.

Allopathy tried to counteract the problem of alternative medical systems by forming the American Medical Association in the late forties!. They standardized the education and set minimum acceptable standards to be a physician, and issued certificates to those who qualified!. By the 1850s or so it was pretty clear that even though allopathy and homeopathy were trumpeting their exclusive advantages the two forms were essentially doing the same thing, only with different terminology - providing moderate doses to a patient with a remedy in order to induce the body to engage in a counter reaction to whatever symptom was present!.

How this applies to your question - Your family may have tried treating the ill/injured person themselves before sending someone off to town on snowshoes for someone better-skilled in medicine!.

Feel free to contact me via my profile for further questionsWww@QuestionHome@Com

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