Overview

From a headless burial to cocaine toothache drops, the true stories hidden in the Wild West's medical records are a match for its tallest tales. In the 19th century, when dying young was a fact of life, a routine bout of diarrhea could be fatal. No one had heard of viruses or bacteria, but they killed more soldiers on the frontier than hostile raiding parties. Physicians dispensed whiskey for TB, mercury for VD and arsenic for indigestion. Baseball injuries were considered to be in the line of duty and twice resulted in amputations at Fort Davis. Donna Gerstle Smith explains how an industrious laundress could earn more than a private, how a female army surgeon won the Medal of Honor and how a garrison illegally hung the local bartender.

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9781467152464

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Donna Gerstle Smith worked for the National Park Service for almost three decades as a park ranger and park historian. Her fascination with history began while researching for her master's degree thesis on nineteenth-century medicine at frontier military posts. Inspired by reading old letters, journals, army medical records and other primary source materials, she found them to be priceless windows for looking into the past.

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