Essay On Colonial Medicine

Appalachian folk medicine is a system of healing made up of beliefs and practices that are transferred by oral tradition through families and communities. It was developed in response to a lack of access to modern medical care and combines homemade remedies with superstition and religious beliefs. A general definition of folk medicine is a collection of cures that are handed down by oral tradition and other similar means of heritage and are considered outside of mainstream medicine. Appalachian folk medicine sprung up from the need for health care. In pre-industrial Appalachia, doctors and modern medicine were rare and inaccessible as well as expensive, so people relied on traditional home remedies and superstitious practices to alleviate pain and to cure disease. Practices such as using turpentine and brown sugar to cure worms and the use of magnetism to stimulate the body to heal itself are common for many minor illnesses. The most common aspect of Appalachian folk medicine, however, is the widespread use of herbal and homemade medicines that are believed to have healing powers. It relies on local roots, flowers, fruits, bark, leaves, and seeds that could be gathered and then combined or treated to make them suitable for healing.

Many traditional Native medicines and healing practices were discouraged with the advent of Western medicine, but now there is a movement to return to traditional ways (Zubek, 1994, p. 1924). Modern Western medicine treats the symptoms to cure a diseased state when the body is out of homeostasis. Native American healing traditions do this as well with herbs and plants suited to the purpose. These Native healing traditions also include sacred rituals, chants, and purification rites to help bring the spirit and mind of the afflicted back into balance. In effect, treating the whole person, not only the disease. A blending of these two healing practices could bring about better prognoses for today's patients. The purpose of this paper is

Medicine During the Civil War The American Civil War was a war that broke out on April 12, 1861 and ended on May 9, 1865. The war took place in the United States of America and was fought between the Northern and Southern states. More specifically, the war was being fought by the United States of America and the Confederate States of America. The war initially started because the United States felt angry about the fact that the Confederate States left the Union to protect slavery and so the United States initiated war.

The Civil War was a very eventful, horrific, terrifying, and brutal war in American History. It’s circumstances caused the lives of SO many courageous soldiers. With the help of the medical treatments or procedures that came about, several keys of life, whether daily life or life amidst war, improved. The innovation of medicine in the civil war is very important because of it’s effects on the war, modern medicine, and changes in treatment on the battlefield.

The medicines and medical techniques used during the Civil War were very primitive for their time. Extremely little was known about germs and the dangers of infections. In Recovery, it is stated that, “Treating wounds and illnesses with medication had become common—opiates, stimulants, sedatives, diuretics, purgatives, and more were widely available and used. The first pills had been made in the early 1800s. The stethoscope and the

Healthcare During the American Revolution INTRODUCTION There were many problems faced during the American Revolution. One of these many problems faced was the fact that there was poor health care. According to U.S. History, most physicians and caregivers that treated patients did not attend medical school and most of the doctors that did attend medical school, attended in Europe (Rorke, n.d.). The New York University of Libraries observes that in the barracks, there was a high chance of disease due to many factors. It has also claimed that the medicine was not as advanced as it is today and that the treatments for many injuries and illnesses had not been discovered yet (Health and Medicine in Revolutionary America., n.d.).

During the Civil War, they had to have many medicines, operations, and surgeries done to themselves or others in order to survive (Jenny Goellnitz, Paragraph 1). Some of these medicines we still use today. Medical technology and scientific knowledge have changed dramatically since the Civil War, but the basic principles of military health care remain the same. The deadliest thing that faced the Civil War soldier was disease. For every soldier who died in battle, two died from disease.

In the Elizabethan era, medicine was incredibly simple and led to the death of millions.

• Treatment of illness includes physical treatment, drugs, and a spiritual cure. • Knowledge and use of herbs • The use of spiritual and/or magical cures, were important and apply to the general medical treatment. • About 1500 different plants, pastes, potions, and powders were recorded. • Citizens were smart enough to wrap medicines in flower petals to create a form of a capsule/pill.

Native American traditional medicine and spiritual healing rituals go back for thousands of years, these traditions often focus on different variations of alternative medicine. This knowledge is passed on throughout generations, many of the tribes learn that by mixing natural plants such as herbs and roots they can make remedies with healing properties. It is believed that being healthy is when people reach a state of harmony not only spiritually, mentally but physically. To be able to overcome the forces that cause illness people must “operate in the context of relationship to four constructs —namely, spirituality (Creator, Mother Earth, Great Father); community (family, clan, tribe/nation); environment (daily life, nature, balance); and self (inner passions and peace, thoughts, and values)” (Portman & Garret, 2006, p.453). In this research paper I am going to show evidence of the tremendous influence that Native American medicine and spiritual healing have over modern medicine in the course of healing

During the 19th century, medicine was not very advanced, and when it came to treating slaves, the treatments were even less developed. Slaves were viewed as property during the 1800’s, causing the healthcare of the slaves to be considerably less advantageous than that of their slaveholders. Slaves often lived and worked in unhealthy environments, resulting in a greater susceptibility to disease (“In the Letters Written by Slave Owners”). Many slaves were overworked, malnourished, and left to drink excrement infested water. With little access to physicians, slaves frequently treated one another back to health. When slaves would treat one another, they would more than likely use herbal remedies. These herbal remedies included, “snakeroot, mayapple, red pepper, boneset, pine needles, comfrey, and red oak bark” (“Slave Medicine”). If slaves were not being treated by one of their own, “the responsibility for the health of slaves often fell to

The logic and principles of medieval medicine shaped those of Modern medicine. Never was there a more efficient method perfected, so much that it remained through history through so many hundreds of years. Today’s concepts of diagnosis, relationships with the church, anatomy, surgery, hospitals and training, and public health were established in the Middle Ages.

In order to heal a fractured, sprained or dislocated bone, the natives would form a padding of wet clay or rawhide to form a cast around the injury. This restricted movement, thus allowing the bone to heal properly. In another method, used by the Ojibwas, they washed the fractured arm with warm water, then greased it, applied a warm poultice of wild ginger and spikenard to ease the pain, covered it with cloth, and bound the arm with cedar splints (Vogel 215). This procedure resulted in a sling that allowed the broken bone to heal correctly. When someone broke a bone, it was crucial that the bone be able to heal properly as the injured person was needed to return to work as quickly as possible. Some Native Americans often used specific drugs to suppress ovulation and control the menstrual cycle (Vogel 5). This drug's success started researchers on the road that led to the pill, a common form of birth control today. This demonstrates that many of the needs of the people of the past are similar to the needs of the people today. In 1536, an Indian chief, Domagaia, treated an abundant disease, scurvy, by boiling the leaves and bark of a 'magical tree' and then placing the dregs upon the legs of the people that had been exposed (Morsette 5).

At first Europeans were skeptical of the medicine that the Native Americans used. Medicine men and women used new medical techniques that the Europeans never have seen before, they prayed to spirits and had ceremonies to heal some patients. Native American healers highly believed in spiritual healing that Europeans were not accustom to and did not believe in. However Europeans went crazy over the way Native Americans could use plants and herbs in healing. Native Americans doctors would go into the forest often not far from their homes and find plants, berries, barks, and roots that would be used in healing, although they have been known to go on trips for several days to collect materials too. Many herbs that Native Americans used in early colonial America are still used today like ginseng and bayberry. With the Native Americans knowledge of herbs and natural remedies many colonists were beginning to think that Native American medicine men and women were better doctors than their own educated European doctors. Natives Americans came along way from being savages.

Witchcraft revolution in the humor of it all people believed in magic spirits potions that also the town doctor to help them care this disease but if they died they would say it was paying for their ancestor’s behaviors or sins of their own. George Washington died in the results of given a shot of mercury, also poison white salt to make him per spire involvement due to his a sore throat. People’s beliefs of human body contains four fluids human blood, yellow bile, phlegm, and black bile. Our ancestors believed in evil spirits entered their bodies and they became ill. Also back in the old day’s people believed in hocus-pocus focus that was better than believing in what was the result of the illness and the germs.