History of medical practice in Illinois - Bushnell Historical Society

34 History of Medical Practice in Illinoiswas puzzled because there was no pump, cistern, drain, or means of gettingrid of refuse. Her landlord told her to pile the garbage in the middle ofthe street, where the pigs would dispose of it. And they did. 34 In Milwaukee,in spite of ordinances to the contrary, hogs, cattle, and fowl ran at willuntil the Civil War. 35In Springfield the hog controversy went on for two decades while theanimals wallowed in the mud holes, disputed the narrow sidewalks withpedestrians, rooted up the boards. Their defenders claimed that theyhelped to keep the city clean, and that as long as they were allowed to runloose, the poor could raise their own meat. Their opponents claimed thathogs created more nuisances than they removed, that they were often founddead, and that a dead hog never had an owner. 36 So it went, not only in thecapital of Illinois, but in many another place as well.In all probability the hog, imperfect scavenger that he was, served auseful purpose. Even with his services, conditions were bad enough. Thecity that was built on hilly ground was fortunate, for then the rains washedthe streets, though only to deposit movable rubbish, filth, and offal on thefirst level spot. With this in mind one understands the remark of thetraveler, Hulme, in 1819: "I hate the very sight of a level street, unlessthere be every thing necessary to carry off all filth and water." 37 And oneknows what Latrobe meant when he described Chicago in 1833 as "onechaos of mud, rubbish, and confusion." 38It would be wrong to assume that every pioneer was as dirty, as intemperate,as gluttonous, and as ignorant as the descriptions cited mightindicate. There were many early settlers to whom none of these characteristicscould have been applied. Nevertheless, one cannot immerse himselffor long in the literature of the time without concluding that at least thegeneralizations of observers were sound.It would be wrong, also, to assume that there was no improvementduring the pioneer period. However, even as the mid-century mark approached,conditions in the Middle West left much to be desired. That weknow from the remarkably thorough survey of the region made by Dr.Daniel Drake in the late forties, and published in 1850 under the forbiddingtitle, A Systematic Treatise, Historical, Etiological, and Practical,on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America. 39Drake visited almost every community in the Middle West, described it(with particular attention to those aspects of the environment bearing on'"Domestic Mariners of the Americans, I, 52-53.35Bayrd Still, Milwaukee: The History of a City (Madison, 1948), 99-100, 248.36Paul M. Angle, "Here I Have Lived": A History of Lincoln's Springfield, 91.37Early Western Travels, X, 70.38The Rambler in North America, II, 209.89A second Series, with the same title, was published in Philadelphia in 1854.