Too long, or just can’t believe the state of medicine then?

Re:#5,7

I am also impressed that they were able to receive that much support, even in households with very different beliefs. I have several friends who live in the South who have a hard time reaching out to, and making friends with strong religious opinions about Mormons. One mom spent two momths comvincing the parents of her daughter’s best friends at school, who are Baptist or Evangelical, to come to her birthday slumber party.

I think that it would be great if we had a little more of that kindness for others, being willing to share our food, housing and washing machines, to help out someone who is not of our religion or denomination, with graciousness. (And sometimes heated theological debates, which still, almost always, allowed them to go to sleep friends with their host.)

Ardis, it looks like your search came up with most of the things I found. I guess I just wasn’t sure from clicking on a few of the links if there would have been something specific. The fact that taking them made him throw up made me wonder about ipecac. This quote, taken from Dr. Chase’s Third, last, and complete receipt book and household physician … By Alvin Wood Chase

http://books.google.com/books?id=QzDiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA245&lpg=PA245&dq=liver+pills+ipecac&source=bl&ots=cQSkTpJ7HT&sig=1lfbMHy8IRFPdaUAkMjoCQEueDA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DBjGUOyOO4i8iwLb0oDICg&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAg

seems to indicate that ipecac may have been part of the treatment, although I still am not sure what he had, or why this seemed the right thing to take.

“1. INFLAMMATION OF THE LIVER.—Treatment.— When the bowels are confined, usually termed a costive state of the bowels, 1 pt. of warm water, 1 table-spoonful of salt, and 1 tea-spoonful of hog’s lard, as a clyster, will give relief; or take one or two of the following liver pills at bedtime:
Dr. Chase’s Cathartic and Liver Pill.—Take podophyllin, 60 grs.; leptandrin, sanguinarin, ipecac, and pure cayenne, each 30 grs.; make into 60 pills, with a little soft extract of mandrake or dandelion. This is the best pill I have ever used, as a cathartic and liver pill, and to act on the secretions generally. As a purgative the dose is from 2 to 4 pills, for a grown person; and as an alterative and substitute for blue mass, and to act on the liver, 1 pill once a day, or every other day.
Remarks.—Should you not wish to go to the trouble of making this pill, inquire at the drug store for it, or send 25 cents to the Chase Medicine Company, Detroit, Mich., for it.
When, from any cause, the languor, sleepiness, furred tongue, etc., give notice of an impending bilious attack, 4 or 5 of the liver pills should be taken at night, and followed in the morning by a dose of infusion of senna and salts, or a dose of castor oil. Extract of dandelion made into pills with 1 gr. of leptandrin to each pill, 1 taken every night, is an excellent remedy. From a long practical experience I have found that the dandelion is a most valuable medicine for this complaint, and there are herbs to cure all diseases provided by our Heavenly Father, if we would but seek them out and test their virtues. But experiments on this subject have been too much neglected to afford us all the information we need. I have found the use of the dandelion in the treatment of this disease to be a most valuable remedy. Indeed I may here observe that in the treatment of liver complaint the same precautionary remarks as those on indigestion, will also apply to this disease—that sick headache, foul tongue, or heaviness In the region of the stomach, will indicate the necessity of giving a mild emetic of ipecacuanha; and should there begreat heat, inflammation,’ or feverishness, the use of warm lemonade or a dose of salts mixed in warm water, and bathing the feet in warm water, so as to produce perspiration or determination to the surface will afford relief. Should the bowels be costive, regulate them with the following valuable pills: Take extract of butternut, 30 grs.; powdered jalap, 20 grs.; soap, 10 grs. Mix. Make 15 pills. Three or 4 is a dose. The extract of butternut has been found one of the best cathartics in fevers, and as a general purgative medicine.”

Those diaries and letters sound fascinating, Julia.

Being out in the weather, without knowing if anyone would/could take care of me if I got really sick would have taken a lot of faith. I think I would have gone if called, but I would have needed angels watching over me to make it through some of those conditions.

I am curious about what “blood pills” really means. An Internet search came up with way too many options, even with dates.

Ardis, you and many of your more learned readers, know this time period. I am curious about what they are, but I am also curious about ways to sort through a google search when trying to figure out what is relevant or not. (I have never thought Internet searches would replace historians, but sometimes I feel like I am wasting everyone’s time asking questions that most of your readers know because they have a much better feel for the time period.)

I know my personal family history stories relatively well, although they are usually accounts written by grandchildren about their grandparents and parents. Other than my great-grandmother who kept a diary while teaching at Big Sur, and then stopped keeping one while her oldest, MaryAnne, (who was a baby with a lot of colic) is the only journal or diary I know of.

There are a lot of Ruddle Station documents and letters, but while there are later stories about what happened, the older papers were lost in the Indian attacks and most of Stephen Ruddle’s papers were destroyed either right before or immediately after his death. They are some of the things listed as “missing and unable to disperse” in his will.

All of this is to say, I could tell you all about great-great-great grandma Sarah and her daughters traveling by wagon, (without her husband and son who went a year earlier to start a homestead) to California, because two of her daughters both wrote about the experience in letters to their grandchildren. I don’t have Sarah’s account, although as a school teacher and reader of history, I suspect she must have written her experiences down. Her letters to the editor about women’s suffrage are well written and show she was very much aware of what was going on back East. Those letters, printed in the local paper are the only things I have read that she personally wrote.

Anyway, this became a ramble, but it comes both from the question of wanting to understand the details of daily life, during that time, but also because a friend asked me why Keepa keeps coming up in my blog. She gets why certain things I write are inspired by reading here, but she doesn’t understand why I read everything here at Keepa, since many if them are boring to her. My emailed response was that I read all of it, so I can “steal” the best bits to share with my readers, and inspire me to write, but I am working on a longer answer; about why understanding Mormon culture and history of the past, through source materials instead of only relying on Deseret Books, is giving me a much richer and more nuanced view of what being a “Saint” really means. (If I ever get it finished, Ardis, I will send it to you and see if you want to cross-post it here.)

Thanks for putting up with a rambling now and again. (Okay, it probably happens more often than not.) the ability to ask scholars who not only know the time period well, but can help me find insight into my own practice living the gospel, through the comments made about the posts, has been an important part of not feeling cut off from the gospel during this time when I am not physically able to attend church.