Step in History-Hospital Treatments

Fort Howard Hospital Treatments

By: Tony La Luzerne and Daniel Liedtke, Brown County Historical Society

How many of us are already tired of cold and flu season? Many of us have probably been sick already. These illnesses are an interesting link to the past. Many before us have gotten ill, and many will after us. Thankfully, medical technology has changed though!

Today, if we are ill, we can go to a licensed doctor and get some antibiotic that we can’t even pronounce the real name for. But for fun, let’s imagine ourselves at Fort Howard in 1836. We have at least two doctors at the fort, Dr. Richard Satterlee and Dr. Jospeh Wright, we have a hospital that is brand new and we have some of the “latest” medical treatments. Unfortunately, our doctors did not have very formal medical training, nothing is sterilized at our hospital, and the “latest” medical treatments could make us even sicker than we are now!

The common cold has survived thousands of years. Treatments over time have varied. If we visited our good friend Dr. Satterlee, he would give us a “brisk purgative,” followed by an opiate and a strong emetic (this makes everything come up).[i] This was a simple treatment. What about a bad stomachache and diarrhea? Well, we would simply roll up our sleeve and let the doctor bleed us for awhile, take some laudanum and rest. After twenty-four hours, we are able to take boiled milk and toast.[ii] Hopefully no one has gotten cholera recently, but just in case you did, Dr. Satterlee would prescribe a dose of calomel (a chalky mercury compound) and more bloodletting to “render the system more susceptible to the action of grand remedy, Mercury.”[iii]

Whether it was the treatments what worked, or the fear of the treatments, in 1836 there were only 28 reported illnesses in November and December at Fort Howard: 1 fever, 1 case of pneumonia, 3 of catarrh (the common cold), 1 of cynache (croup), 4 of rheumatism, 4 of diarrhea, 1 of dysentery, 1 of colic, 3 of syphilis (oops!), 8 wounds and 1 report of drunkenness.[iv] There was also one death reported on December 25^th.

So, while we can say that we have had the common experience of getting the cold or flu, we can rest easy knowing that we don’t have to have any bloodletting done or worry about having any mercury or arsenic in our pills!

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[i] Stokes, William MD. and John Bell, MD. Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Physic. Ed. Barrington & Geo. D. Haswell. Philadelphia. 18742. P.170.

[ii] Cecil, Russel L. ed. And Robert F. Loeb, ed. A Textbook of Medicine. W.B. Saunder Company. London. 1951. p. 719.

[iii] Rosenberg, Charles E. The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 1962. p. 66.

[iv] Quarterly Reports of Sick and Wounded at Fort Howard, 1936. Fort Howard Interpretive Files. Officers’ Quarters. Heritage Hill State Historical Park. Green Bay, WI.