NEW ADDITIONS TO THIS PAGE !!!
Copies of the most of the medical pages in the original manuscript were pulled from my archives and appear at the end.
Description
The following notes were extracted from a Journal or Trail Diary kept by Russel Crawford of Morton, Putnam Co., Iowa. This journal was on loan to Oregon Historical Society from Barnes Ladies, Salem and Olympia, 1993-1994, when I was in the midst of studying Oregon trail medicine. A member of the Oregon Historical Society brought it to my attention one day due to the recipes it contained, in particular the recipe for rattle snake bites, and the sorrel based plaster cure for “cancer”, two medical themes that recurred throughout my years of researching these diaries.
Based on entries in this diary, the approximate location of Russel Crawford’s original residence is perhaps Wolf Creek East Central Iowa, Grundy Co., S., E., E. NE. to Cedar River near LaPorte City. Some parts of the writing are illegible, but the following information could be read from his writings pertaining to place and date:
“Waverly May 31 18(4–)”
This location is possibly in or around Bremer Co., Iowa.
This information is presented in four parts. The first parts details briefly my findings. The second part consists of the original recipes, modified for easy reading and a quick review; no spelling have been changed; a slash (/) has been added to indicate the end of a line; a double slash is used to indicate the end of a page. The third part is for those purists who need to see the information as close to its original representation as possible; it has these recipes in their original format, as they appear in the diary, with spacing between lines. The fourth part pertains to the materia medica of the diary, with brief descriptions on the medicines Crawford mentioned.
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Brief Summary of Findings
The following is a listing of the recipe titles appearing in the diary. Presumably, each of these is an important medical issue on the trail. In this case, Crawford is possibly and argonaut, going to California on horseback, so recipes to deal with problems related to the horse are provided as well.
Recipes List
- For Rattlesnake Bite
- Cure for Hydrophobia
- For a Cancer
- A valuable receipt fo(r) Sore Eyes
- For Eracipelas
- Cure for colick in horses
- Cure for Hydrophobia
It is very likely that once again the order in which these recipes were jotted down is some sort of indicator of relative importance for each recipe and medical topic.
Rattlesnake Bites. Snake bites were the biggest concern. Crawford’s treatment of this problem however may be too conservative, so to speak. Since the exact reason snake bites and the venom caused the symptoms that resulted, a cure with reason was hard to deduce for most people. This recipe Crawford offers (alcohol) is perhaps ameliorating, but not very unique and probably not very effective except for its anesthetic effects.
Hydrophobia. The second and last recipes given are for hydrophobia. Today we know of hydrophobia as rabies, which is perhaps possible out there on the trail. But rabies takes a while to develop in animals, and so it would be expected to occur with a horse several days of more after the event that caused it, if there was such an event at all–the animal bite. The hydrophobia recipe is also possibly an extension of the Rattlesnake Bite cure. Crawford could have linked the two together in terms of symptomatology, as well as cause and effect, a behavior typical of medicine throughout the first half of the 19th century. In this philosophy, it was felt that one condition led to the other, such as the hydrophobia following a snakebite to the horse’s legs. This too is a common adage in medicine prior to the Civil War. The theory of a disease migrating from one part of the body to the next even has some similar philosophies existing as early as 1760–Theophilus Borden’s theory for disease (covered in a section in the blog specifically on disease philosophy).
Hydrophobia was not very well differentiated from a number of diseases or medical problems that could result in misbehaved farm animals. This means the term hydrophobia could very well have been a term that was applied to any and all behavior disorders with horses as well as actual biological problems due to rabies and past animal bites. The relative commonness of hydrophobia also suggest that the first definition for hydrophobia is more often apt to be the case than the true definition of rabies. Imagine for example a horse bucking the riding off the saddle due to being upset about something, and doing this again and again on a daily basis. Could this be interpreted as hydrophobia? Perhaps. Or a horse drinking too much alkaline water leading to it later demise.
The term hydrophobia itself refers to a fear of water. ‘Could this be causing a problem?’ is a question some argonauts might ask. Could water itself be a cause for these misbehaviors?
One other possibility for hydrophobic behavioral patterns is the lack of good water, limited supply of fodder and other food sources for horses along the trail. This increases the possibility that a horse may eat some equinotoxic species such as locoweed (astragalus). In places where there is a lot of hydrophobia being reported, my first suspicion is always this condition.
The fact that two hydrophobia recipes are provided by Crawford restates the importance of it as a condition a horse could develop, or maybe even is likely to develop if one was not careful. More importantly, in the second recipe hydrophobia and venomous snake bites are linked to this particular recipe. The normal expectation that rabies is the cause for hydrophobia is therefore excluded pretty much by this entry by Crawford. There are perhaps three problems possibly linked together here, two by Crawford, one by myself and the lack of knowledge overlanders had for this third problem. Rattlesnake bites, hydrophobia and locoweed are related–all may be related to the same types of behaviors horses have along the trial. These observations seem to support more a unique problem out there being notes that pertains to locoweed and the excessive imbibing of alkali and other forms of poisonous water by horses, oxen, etc.
The problems differentiating cancer. Can you differentiate the following types of problems in the pictures above? infection-induced abscess, diabetes abscess, herpes chancre, tertiary syphilis chancre, canker or cold sore, common cyst, sty, the buboes associated with prairie dogs and the bubonic plague., erysipelas, scrophula (a TB-related condition), inflamed parotid, parotid cancer, breast cancer lump, other cancer or tumor. See answers at bottom of page.
Cancer. True cancer as we know it is not an expected epidemic issue on the overland trip. Of course such cases could develop, but the “cancer” here Crawford refers to are such conditions as saddle-induced boils, injury-related abscesses, cankers of the mouth, and “tumors” or swellings beneath the skin. All of these are in need of being lanced. But another way that was often used to remove these masses was to produce a highly acidic plaster and lay that on top of the flesh. By eating through the skin, and causing anaerobic conditions by blocking off exposure to the air, this remedy causes a boil or abscess to open up and erupt, and for those problems that don’t tend to open up and erupt, chew away at the flesh, remove any covering that was naturally produce, thereby releasing the pus beneath, or simply eating away to the tumor, wart, or true cancer that was in the body. Generally speaking, this is not a cancer remedy although many history of herbal medicine reviewers and modern herbalists would love to believe it is.
This sorrel recipe has a very long history, and the earliest mention of it in Oregon history documents I recall seeing and reading about is a similar recipes provided to Fur Traders in the Fort Vancouver area about 1825. For the Fur trade, this was provided by an old German couple and is said to have come from Germany back home. It is noted in some papers and writers pertaining to Fort Vancouver medicine and early shipping medicine, ca. 1825, and is related to the local American fur trade expeditions. However, my research on colonial medicine along the east coast traces this recipe back even further, perhaps as early as 1800. It was very traditional and is perhaps more domestic in origin than the result of some invention by a professionally-trained physician. Therefore, this is perhaps best viewed as a common sense folklore recipe of domestic origins.
One other potential “cancer” drug on the trail is the spurge plant Euphorbia and the Croton plant. In Foods on the Oregon Trail, the author notes the leaves of this herb being collected in large amounts and hung to dry on the back of a wagon. The assumption was that these were edible, but in fact they are toxic and medicinal to some extent. The pioneer who dried these leaves may have been an eclectic doctor, and most likely was neither regular nor Thomsonian in practice. Indian Root Doctoring is another possibility, but this herb is not often mentioned as such by Indian Root doctors. The timing is essential here as well. For each year prior to 1845, the likelihood of Indian Root doctoring increases. Eclectic medicine was born and reborn in 1824 (NY, as Reformed Medicine) and 1830/2 (in Ohio, as Eclectic); but the herbal medicine aspects of this professions weren’t really perfected until the 1840s; in 1845, the concentrated plant extract was invented by and for this profession. By 1849, the primary non-allopathic profession to rule in the field of medicine, aside from homeopathy, was Eclectic medicine. The doctor drying the Croton leaf was probably an Eclectic physician, originating from the region between New York and Ohio, on down to Memphis, Tennessee.
Sore Eyes. Remedies for sore eyes need not be explained. The reasons for such a recipe are obvious.
Erysipelas. This malady has some issues to contend with when reviewing it, its epidemiology and its cure. First of all, the true erysipelas brought on by ergotism is probably not being referred to here. Ergotism is possible in the midwest and westward, but one has to grow grains for it to become a problem of human concern. The erysipelas of an infectious disease nature is very possible. The only problem is, its presentation is hard to differentiate sometimes from other common diseases presenting themselves through the skin, such as scrophula, a disease of the head-neck area caused by a tuberculosis-related mycobacteria that does not cause consumption.
What else has to be noted is that erysipelas is distinguished from cancer-related maladies, most of which are non-cancer conditions. The erysipelas is associated with a burning sensation, which is why it tends to be well differentiated. The use of Bluestone to treat this problem is very typical for the time. Mercury-rich bluestone is sometimes associated with the recipe, but not always. There is an interesting remedy given for the Blue Mass on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_mass). It consists of mercury, licorice, mallow, glycerol and rose honey. This is probably not at all like the recipes related to the overland migrations. There are just some similarities in the types of ingredients employed. It was called blue mass due to the blueish color of the resulting products used as a medicine once the mixing was done. See the section with notes on John Kennedy Bristow for more on this particular remedy. Vancouver Fort Physician William Fraser Tolmie, ca. 1834, also makes mention of a form of “Erysipelas” he had to treat and provides a vivid description of, covered on another web page at this tie under Pacific Northwest Medicine.
Colic in horses. This major problem with horses, on the trail and off, has numerous recipes and years of attempts made by early farriers to deal with it. Crawford is told to drench them with weak lye to eliminate this problem. The irritation alone that such a treatment could produce makes its usefulness questionable. There may have been some philosophy out there that by cleansing the skin and coat that a horse becomes less colicky. The folklore behind this form of therapy requires further exploration and review.
(Above recipe is several recipes down)
Receipts
From Journal kept by Russel Crawford
Morton, Putnam Co., Iowa.
Receipts
.
For Rattlesnake Bite
.
Take the yolk of a good egg / and put it in a tea cup; / stir in with it as much salt /as will make it thick enou- / gh not to run off. / Spread it as a plaster, and / apply it to the wound, / and we will insur your / life for a five cent piece.
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Cure for Hydrophobia
As soon as posible after / being bitten by a dog, (or / any animal which is // likely to infect you / with the disease) wash the / wound with warm vinegar / or tepid water. Wash it / Clean, and then apply a / few drops of Muriatic / Acid, which will kill the / poison.
If the above cannot be obtain / ed
.
Cure for Snakebite / As soon after being bit / as posible, procure whiskey / or Brandy, and drink / untill you feel the effect / of it, it will take a great quanti / ty to bring drunkenes on, / it is said to be a certain cure.
.
For a Cancer
Obtain a large quantity / of the herb known as / Sheep Sorrel, Bruise it / until the juice can be pressed / out, by pounding it well. / Press the juice out of the / herbs and strain it. / After straining it put / it in a pewter plate or vessel and / place it in the sun; / the acid will combine with / the pewter and form a salve / which being applied as / a plaster will eat between / the cancer and the sound flesh / and it can be extracted in short time.
.
A valuable receipt fo(r) Sore Eyes
To 1 pt soft water melted / from the first snow in / March or common rain / water, put a piece of / white vitreal about as / large as a crab apple / or the first joint of the / thumb add a few drops of laudanum
July 189/57 Joseph Spencer
P.Q.B.
[hand-writing style changes]
.
For Eracipelas
The worst caces of Aracip / elas can be cured by / washing the part / affected with Blue // Stone mineral with / water This I learned/lurned / from Aunt Burnes / an old and experien / ced Lady.
.
Cure for colick in horses
Drench them with / weak Lie it is said / to be a certain cure
.
Cure for Hydrophobia
Wash the part affected / with Spirits of Hartshorn / it should be constantly / bathed with it. During / the day three or four / doses distributed with / water should be taken / inwardly. This was / tried with success / in the south for the / bite of rattle snake / and scorpion. This / combines chemically / with poison introduced / into the blood and / destroys its deleterious / ness.
Receipts in original format
.
For Rattlesnake Bite
Take the yolk of a good egg
and put it in a tea cup;
stir in with it as much salt
as will make it thick enou-
gh not to run off.
Spread it as a plaster, and
apply it to the wound,
and we will insur your
life for a five cent piece.
.
Cure for Hydrophobia
As soon as posible after
being bitten by a dog, (or
any animal which is
likely to infect you
with the disease) wash the
wound with warm vinegar
or tepid water. Wash it
Clean, and then apply a
few drops of Muriatic
Acid, which will kill the
poison.
If the above cannot be obtain
ed
Cure for Snakebite
As soon after being bit
as posible, procure whiskey
or Brandy, and drink
untill you feel the effect
of it, it will take a great quanti
ty to bring drunkenes on,
it is said to be a certain cure.
For a Cancer
Obtain a large quantity
of the herb known as
Sheep Sorrel, Bruise it
until the juice can be pressed
out, by pounding it well.
Press the juice out of the
herbs and strain it.
After straining it put
it in a pewter plate or vessel and
place it in the sun;
the acid will combine with
the pewter and form a salve
which being applied as
a plaster will eat between
the cancer and the sound flesh
and it can be extracted in short time.
.
A valuable receipt fo(r) Sore Eyes
To 1 pt soft water melted
from the first snow in
March or common rain
water, put a piece of
white vitreal about as
large as a crab apple
or the first joint of the
thumb add a few drops of laudanum
July 189/57 Joseph Spencer
P.Q.B.
[hand-writing style changes]
.
For Eracipelas
The worst caces of Aracip
elas can be cured by
washing the part
affected with Blue
Stone mineral with
water This I learned/lurned
from Aunt Burnes
an old and experien
ced Lady.
.
Cure for colick in horses
Drench them with
weak Lie it is said
to be a certain cure
Cure for Hydrophobia
Wash the part affected
with Spirits of Hartshorn
it should be constantly
bathed with it. During
the day three or four
doses distributed with
water should be taken
inwardly. This was
tried with success
in the south for the
bite of rattle snake
and scorpion. This
combines chemically
with poison introduced
into the blood and
destroys its deleterious
ness.
Materia Medica notes
From Journal kept by Russel Crawford
Morton, Putnam Co., Iowa.
[On loan to Oregon Historical Society from Barnes Ladies, Salem and Olympia.]
Blue Stone mineral/Blue Mass
“Blue Stone mineral
with water” For Eracipelas
For “washing the part
affected…”
“This I learned/lurned
from Aunt Burnes an old
and experienced Lady.
Brandy
whiskey or Brandy
“As soon after
being bit as posible…
drink untill you feel
the effect of it Cure for Snakebite
“drink untill you feel
the effect of it, it will
take a great quantity to
bring drunkenes on, it is
said to be a certain cure.”
Hartshorn, Spirit of
Spirits of Hartshorn Cure for Hydrophobia
Applied as a wash
and a constant bath..
with “three or four
doses distributed with
water…taken inwardly.”
(the same)
“This was tried with success in the south for the bite of rattle snake and scorpion.”
“it combines chemically with poison introduced into the blood and destroys its deleteriousness.”
Laudanum
“a few drops of laudanum” A valuable receipt fo(r) Sore Eyes
Postscript: “July 189/57 Joseph Spencer”
Lye
“Drench them with
weak Lie” Cure for colick in horses
“it is said
to be a certain cure”
Muriatic Acid
a few drops of Muriatic Acid Cure for Hydrophobia
“”…which will kill the after being bitten poison.”
“As soon as posible after being bitten by a dog, (or any animal which is likely to infect you with the disease…)”
Salt
as much salt
as will make it thick For Rattlesnake Bite
a plaster
Prescriber’s guarantee:
“and we will insur your
life for a five cent piece.”
Sheep Sorrel
“…a large quantity
of the herb known as
Sheep Sorrel” For a Cancer
Bruised, “until the
juice can be pressed
out…”
Then “put it in a pewter
plate or vessel and
place it in the sun”
to promote oxidation
of the pewter…
form a salve”
Vinegar
wash the wound with
warm vinegar or
tepid water. Cure for Hydrophobia
“As soon as posible after being bitten by a dog, (or any animal which is likely to infect you with the disease…)”
Water
wash the wound with
warm vinegar or
tepid water. Cure for Hydrophobia
“As soon as posible after being bitten by a dog, (or any animal which is likely to infect you with the disease…)”
“soft water melted
from the first snow in
March or common rain
water” A valuable receipt fo(r) Sore Eyes
Postscript: “July 189/57 Joseph Spencer”
Whiskey
whiskey or Brandy
“As soon after
being bit as posible…
drink untill you feel
the effect of it Cure for Snakebite
“drink untill you feel
the effect of it, it will
take a great quantity to
bring drunkenes on, it is
said to be a certain cure.”
White Vitriol
white vitreal A valuable receipt fo(r) Sore Eyes
Postscript: “July 189/57 Joseph Spencer”
“a piece…about as
large as a crab apple
or the first joint of the
thumb” added to water
to make a salve.
Yolk of a good Egg
yolk of a good egg For Rattlesnake Bite
a plaster
Prescriber’s guarantee:
“and we will insur your
life for a five cent piece.”
ANSWERS TO ABOVE “CANCERS”
- scrofula
- diabetes induced abscesses
- pregnancy induced granuloma
- syphilis induced chancre
- parotid infection
- skin cancer
- staph-resistant abscess
- sty
- cyst
- abscess
- herpetic chancre
- common canker or cold sore
- erysipelas
- bubos associated with bubonic plague (prairie dogs are carriers)
- breast cancer lump
- parotid cancer
- unidentified cancer/tumor
THE RECIPE BOOK ITSELF
(I was allowed to photocopy these pages thanks to the Oregon Historical Society, who in turn had it on loan for copying and placement into the archives.)
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Brian Altonen, MPH, MS 