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

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of his son-in-law, Dr. S. H. Selman, which was published
at Columbus, Indiana, in 1836. In 1825 Carter had mentioned
by name his
reveal his whole secret of practice.
"last student," to whom he meant to
Whether he did so or
not, it is apparent that he later gave young Selman the
revelation. Selman settled in Columbus but toured the state
and advertised widely. His book. The Indian Guide to
Health or a Valuable Vegetable Medical Prescription for
the Cure of All Disorders Incident to this Climate, was
designed as a guide to families and young practitioners.
Selman derived many of his remedies from Dr. Carter,
to whom he gave full credit, and whom he praised, somewhat
ambiguously, as a man "on whom all powers of ratiocination
in possession of the faculty [the regular doctors]
were expended without effect." Like Carter, he ran the
gamut of frontier ailments from ager to snake bite, but was
particularly good on "the Incubus or Night-Mare." This
misery (as well as the hypo) could be caused by anxiety,
despondency, or intense thought, possibly also by diet. The
remedy was blood purification by way of the following
procedure: "Into a copper kettle and five quarts of water
put a handful each of bark of the yellow poplar, dogwood
(from the north side), wild cherry, yellow sarsaparilla root,
and the roots of the running briar. Boil slowly to two
quarts, add a pint of whiskey, and take a tablespoonful two
or three times a day. Let the diet be confined to chicken,
squirrels, beef, mutton, and broths not too highly seasoned."
This recipe has been characterized by a recent
writer as sounding like "something invented by a bartender
with the female trade in mind."^ His remedy for
the hypo was the same as Carter's, but he added among his
cases that of a man who thought, because of a "great
vacancy in his breast which he had never felt before," that
his liver had all been regurgitated.
At Canton, Ohio, in 1838 was published The North
American Indian Doctor, or Nature^ Method of Curing
and Preventing Disease According to the Indians. The
author, Robert L. Foster, also included a "catechism" of