Diphtheria, Scarlet Fever and Early Medicine



Postmarked in 1914, this postcard depicts a a country doctor making his way south from Luxemburg.



Early Kewaunee County was just plain healthy and free from disease. Its residents were younger and the county was isolated enough to ward off communicable diseases. Then things changed.                                                         

As settlements grew and people lived farther from rivers and streams, they began digging wells for drinking water. Outhouses became prevalent and they were often built next to the wells. Garbage, chamber pots and wastewater were thrown where convenient and frequent epidemics were related to well water.

Diphtheria was always around. Schools, churches and lodges were closed during the worst of the outbreaks. Deaths were especially numerous among children with some families losing as many as five or six children in a matter of days. Often the deceased was rolled up in his bedding and buried. During the winter a fire would be built on the frozen ground to thaw it thus enabling grave digging. 

A December 1862 Kewaunee Enterprise published a remedy that it said saved lives. One needed to take ordinary pipe tobacco, place a live coal in the bowl, drop a little tar on the coal and then let the patient draw smoke into the mouth and expel it through the nostrils. A few years later the paper told readers to swab their mouths and throats every half hour with a mixture of golden seal, alum, borax, black pepper, salt and nitrate of potash. The slime on the swab was to be wiped off and then a mixture of liniment of turpentine, sweet oil and aqua ammonia was to be rubbed on the throat. People were reminded to keep the bowels clear as diphtheria was contagious.

Scarlet fever was another common disease. The Enterprise published a cure for that too. A poultice of common burdock boiled in milk was to be applied to the neck of the patient. When black smallpox raised its ugly head, the paper again told readers how to take care of it. A mixture of cream of tartar, rhubarb and cold water was said to be the remedy. Others felt that just before eruption, the chest should be rubbed cotton oil and tartaric ointment. The Enterprise wrote about the advantages of immunization editorializing that no family should neglect  it. Ahnapee's Doc Parsons was vaccinating people saying that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Dr. Parsons arrived in 1855 and was followed by numerous doctors after the Civil War. By then, the doctors were kept busy. Diseases were always around. Lumbering and sawmills meant bones to set and saw related injuries to deal with.  Business for the medical community improved.