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BATTLE CREEK BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
The physicians of that day, here in the woods, after having used what little medicines they may have brought with them, were compelled to fall back on the Thompsonian or the Botanical system, as they found it in the Michigan woods. Dr. Beach's office or repository for certain drugs and medicines, was in the forest about him. As he rode his favorite mare, Doll, through the openings, he would alight, hitch her to a tree, and hunt some herb or root, that he would use in "doctoring" his patients. Another time he would send some one out to dig up some root, or to get some herb or weed that he wished to use as a medicine. I have gone out in the woods many a time for him, when he has been called to my father's house, and dug "Culver root, " a weed growing in the openings. The roots of this weed he would order boiled in
water till a syrup was made about half as thick a^ molasses. It was the worst medicine I ever tasted; and you had to drink about a pint of it at a dose ere the proper effect was produced. Didn't we dislike to get sick ? The remedy was worse than the disease.
Buggies or light wagons were a thing unknown here, hence traveling was either done afoot or on horseback, or with the ox team. The doctor's favorite horse, Doll, carried him through the woods to see his patients. She was a spirited animal, well muscled and a fine mover. He had brought her from New York. She, he said, in winter, when harnessed to a cutter, would grasp the bit in her mouth, and, scudding away over the fine snow track, had drawn him hundreds of miles by the lines, without straightening a tug. Before he died he gave Doll to Addison Cowles, who was to keep her and give one-half of the colts to his family. The colts were also highly valued. I think his son Darwin has some of this stock yet.
Michigan
Page 50
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