Description
Book SynopsisPowder papers, booty balls, and sugar tits— Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs has a cure for whatever ails! These quaint names were given to popular medicinal forms during America's frontier era that were said to cure everything from fallen arches to a broken windmill. Grandmas, mommas, and even certified physicians treated the sick, lame, and unlucky with what was available: barbed wire and horseshoe nails, cactus, pokeweed, buckeyes, you name it. Ironically, a lot of these homespun treatments actually worked. In Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs, a practicing pharmacist takes a light-hearted look at the most popular medicines from the frontier days and how they were intended to work.
Trade ReviewA fun read. * Pharmacy Practice News *
This book is educational and entertaining, thanks to Bethard's light-hearted touch. * Wild West *
Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs: Frontier Medicine in the American West provides a fine guide to frontier medicine and practices and comes from a practicing pharmacist who considers popular medicines of the times. It's of particular interest - and recommendation - to readers of Western history who want a narrowed focus on frontier day medicine. From strange uses of milk and pepper to pill canisters and administration, this succeeds in being a lively, fun read! * Midwest Book Review *
This tongue-in-cheek account of early-day medicines and medical practitioners makes for a fun read but also makes us glad for modern-day medicine. In the old days, the treatment stood a good chance of killing you before the ailment did. -- Elmer Keaton, voted All-Time Best Western Author by the Western Writers of America
Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs should be of value to any writer or researcher of the history of medicine or of the progress of science in the past two to three centuries. Of special use to fiction writers is a timeline of dates associated with major discoveries in the arts and sciences. This book is the American frontier. -- Don Coldsmith, columnist, novelist, lecturer
Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs deserves a prominent place in the library of every historian, historical novelist, and anyone who enjoys a good story. -- Henry Chappell, Author of The Callings and At Home on the Range with a Texas Hunter
Table of ContentsForeword by Henry Chappell Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Frontier Dosage Forms Chapter 2: Treatments: The Good, the Sad, and the Ungodly Chapter 3: Frontier and Pioneer Drugs: A Folk Materia Medica Frontier Medical Dates and Other “Worth of Note” Facts Old and Near-Forgotten Medical Terms References Index About the Author
