The Midwest pioneer, his ills, cures, & doctors - University Library ...

gan to the same scene of a century and a quarter ago, the
processes of getting the mere essentials of Hfe — food, shelter,
clothes, and medicines— to say nothing of conveniences,
travel, and amusements, would no doubt make Hfe
seem infinitely complex. Water did not come from taps,
food did not come from cans, nor did the doctor and
ambulance respond to the telephone.
As the pioneer advanced into the virgin forests and farreaching
prairie lands of the Middle West he was faced
with many problems. In the early days there was the
Indian, ever a nuisance, sometimes a terror. For almost
two centuries the Indian had been a part of the environment;
the struggle with him was a conditioning factor as
important as the climate, the topography, and the vast
distances in determining the character of the American
pioneer.
There was the task of chopping, grubbing, and hewing
a home out of the wilderness, of getting enough food to
carry life through the early years, of creating a domestic
economy which would make that home in a large measure
self-sufficing.
In time came the necessity of acquiring title
to land; of laying hands on enough money to pay for it.
Obtaining cash required means of getting produce to markets—roads,
boats, canals, railroads—the business of transportation.
There was the need for governments, local and
state; of men and money to run them; of schools, lest the
next generation grow up savage and ignorant. In addition,
seriously weighing on the minds of many, was the incubus
of the devil and all his works, matters not so much of this
life as of the next.
More basic than any of these problems, however, was
that of health. Unless the settler survived, all other problems
were relegated into insignificance; he simply never got
around to them. Although nothing was more vital in the
conquest of the wilderness than health, over none of the
factors involved did the people seemingly have less control.
Just as first settlers at Jamestown and Plymouth suffered
heavily from the diseases of a new environment, so did the