History of medical practice in Illinois - Bushnell Historical Society

32 History of Medical Practice in Illinoismen spit, talked of elections and the price of produce, and spit again." 22Backwoodsmen, and their contemporaries in the towns and cities, wereas fond of their drams as of their quids. "Morning bitters," generally whiskey,were drunk by all members of many families. Whiskey before dinnerstimulated the appetite; after eating it aided digestion. Few house-raisings,quilting bees, shooting matches, race-meets, or threshings were got throughwithout the help of the jug. When one early settler met another in a backwoodstavern, often as not the rest of the day was spent "in shooting atmarks and drinking drams of whiskey." 23 One traveler after another—Faux, Fordham, Latrobe, Buckingham—commented on the fondness of thepeople for alcoholic liquor and their excessive indulgence in it. 24Many observers attributed various ailments to this overindulgence, butany went so far as Daniel Drake of Cincinnati, probably the mostfew ifcelebrated physician of the West. Intemperance, Drake believed,causeddisorders of the stomach, liver, and lungs, swelling of the feet, sore eyes,epileptic fits, and leprosy. Moreover, there was always the chance of spontaneouscombustion. "On this point facts have multiplied," he reported,"until the most incredulous inquirer can scarcely retain his doubts. Thebodies of corpulent inebriates, when asleep, have, in several instances,taken fire, by the accidental contact of a burning coal or candle, and all thesoft parts have been reduced to ashes, or driven off in clouds of thicksmoke. To conceive the possibility of this revolting catastrophe, we needonly recollect the combustible nature of fat, and the still more imflammablequality of ardent spirits, which is composed of the very same materials; andwhich, being swallowed, daily,in excessive quantities, with reduction offood, may be presumed to alter, to a certain degree, the chemical compositionof the body. Meanwhile its vital powers become greatly reduced, andthus render it an easier prey to fire or other external agents." 25Althc/ugh leading to no such calamitous end as spontaneous combustion,the eating habits of the Westerner of 125 years ago could not havebeen without their effect on health. The diet was heavy with meat andbread, the latter in many forms, and usually served hot. Mrs. Trollope wasdescribing many a menu when she wrote of a "tea" at Cincinnati as consistingof "tea, coffee, hot cake and custard, hoe cake, johnny cake, wafflecake, and dodger cake, pickled peaches, and preserved cucumbers, ham,turkey, hung beef, applesauce, and pickled oysters." 2622Domestic Manners of the Americans, I, 83.23Excerpts from the Diary of George Flower, 1816, in Chicago History, I, No. 12, 366.24Faux, Memorable Days, in Early Western Travels, XI, 213; Fordham, Personal Narrative,129, 231; Latrobe, Rambler in North America, I, 291; Buckingham, Eastern andWestern States.25Quoted in Pickard and Buley, The Midwest Pioneer, 16.26Domestic Manners of the Americans, I, 83.