Gold Rush Medicine

Prior to the arrival of settlers and explorers into Northern California, this region was described as "...one of the healthful territories on the continent with a climate unrivaled in purity and equability... Nor is sickness, that scourage of humanity, here to harass and hinder us in our pursuits..."

Ill health began on the trip westward. Inadequate supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables predisposed travelers to scurvy (vitamin C deficiency), leading to multiple disorders. As one immigrant described, "I was much surprised today with indications of the scurvy, pain in the ankles and legs, sores breaking out on my hands, and bleeding of my gums when polishing my teeth. God grant it may not be for I have suffered enough already, I think."

Gastrointestinal illnesses were the most common problems, largely because drinking water on wagon trains was often not fit to drink, being "composed of one-third green fine moss, one-third polliwogs, and one-third embryo mosquitoes...these we strained through our teeth." Trauma and its attendant threat, gangrene, were also a common problem.

Among the early waves of immigrants seeking gold were a number of physicians, many of whom turned to practicing medicine after failing to strike it rich. Later, they often turned to other occupations to supplement the meager income from treating other gold seekers who could not afford their services.

"On the sixth of September I was seriously attacked with a bilious fever, also threatened with a dropsy. My Physician thought it impossible for me to bear a run with a fever, he commenced breaking it on Sunday by bleeding and puking which was continued on Monday. I was partially deranged on Sunday, which was followed by a state of mental madness caused by excruciating pain about the crown of my head, of the most agonizing torture that experience could conceive or tongue describe. I had my head shaved and blistered one also upon my neck, upon my back, upon my bowels one upon each arm, one upon each leg, eight in number all sore at the time, very large and inflamed, yet the chief evidence I have of the existence is the scars upon my body, a partial derangement succeeded madness. Three months are lost to me. Time appears like an almost forgotten dream. I must turn from this subject; the recollection of it chills my blood. I view this affliction as a punishment for an abuse of reason; my nerves are still irritable. My health is tolerably good..."