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

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that plant remedies, some good, some otherwise, had
that steam baths had their points, as
well as stimulating medicine, in certain diseases, but might
be fatal in others; and that strong medicines were not all
minerals; deadly poisons came from the vegetable world
tern;
been in use for ages;
as well.
The hands of the more conservative and modest of the
regulars were tied somewhat by the "ethics of the profession."^
Not all possessed the pen and daring of a Daniel
Drake. Often help was received from the press. Said the
Edwardsville Spectator in 1821, "It is one of the severest
curses to a new settlement that quacks of every description
find refuge there, but none do more mischief to society
than the self-dubbed doctors, who in numerous herds deal
death and destruction in the shape of pills, powders, tinctures,
etc."®
Examples of the price paid for "quackery" were constantly
printed and circulated. The "hot-stone steam system"
received its share of blame for needless sacrifice of
life. For instance there was the case of a child with a bean
fast in her throat. She was given heat-producing medicines
and steam baths to produce perspiration, then cold water
was thrown on to produce a cold. The cold was supposed
to bring on a cough and the cough bring up the bean. It
did not work out according to theory; the vinegar thrown
on the hot limestones to induce the perspiration produced
carbonic acid gas and suffocated the child. "When a few
of them shall be convicted of murder or manslaughter and
find their way to the halter or state's prison, the practice
being found unprofitable, may be laid aside."^
The suggestion was followed up a few years later when
the "City and County of New York" indicted and tried
Dr. R. K. Frost, who, "not having the fear of God before
his eyes, but moved and instigated by the devil," did, in
1837, "feloniously and willfully make an assault . . . and
administer unto . . . Tiberius G. French into the body and
bowels of him ... a certain noxious and injurious clyster
... of cayenne pepper and lobelia . . . and did . . .