Customer Reviews

Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs: Frontier Medicine in America

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Wayne Bethard has written a "real hoot" of a book on Frontier Medicine called, "Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs."

It is filled with a plethora of pharmaceutical history gems (example: the "blue mass" pills used by Abraham Lincoln that gave him hallucinations). The book is organized into a comprehensive pharmacopoeia of the drugs used in the early west and well worth reading by all pharmacists, medical students, Wild West history buffs, and anyone who ever wondered why their mother gave them some josh awful medicine when they were a kid. Shoot, it even gives the formula for frontier Viagra.

Wayne injects a number of humorous stories and "asides" that really makes the book a joy to read. The book describes the author as being the "truest of drugstore cowboys" - he works as a practicing hospital pharmacist in Longview, Texas. His book is a factual discussion of early medicine and fun read for everyone - both young and old.

Ron Williamson R.Ph.
Kerrville, TX

Book takes fun, discerning look at frontier medicine
John Pate
Special to the El Paso Times, July 11, 2004

Wayne Bethard, a modern-day cowboy pharmacist from Longview, Texas, has done an excellent job of compiling an exhaustive guide to frontier medicine as it was understood and practiced in early America.

His "Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs: Frontier Medicine in America" (Roberts Reinhart) is an invaluable collection of past cures and treatments.

While Bethard is a pharmacist by trade, he is a natural-born writer. His very down-to-earth, "front porch" conversational writing style nicely blends the hard science of today with the anecdotal approach that came to define frontier medicinal practices.

The book is filled with personal recollections and anecdotes from historical sources, which help to expound the overall philosophy of medicine at the time -- and how that way of thinking is not as distant as we want to believe today. "I remember my mother treating my childhood illls, too. How can I forget that sticky Vicks salve washrag stuck to my chest?"

This book also provides vindication to all our parents who began treating any childhood injury we had with, "You're lucky, in the old days they'd have to cut your whole arm or leg off!" The phrase "If it don't cure you, it'll kill you" was closer to fact than myth. The saying itself came from the medicinal use of arsenic.

"Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs" covers in detail not only virtually every medicine known to the pioneers but al! so methods of dosage. It also has some treatments that will leave you laughing out loud: "Mouse excrement, if pulverized in vinegar, is beneficial for alopecia (hair loss)." Ben Franklin was just as much a quack as the others, "promoting turpentine, in pill form, to not only make bowel gas smell better, but like violets."

Lewis and Clark's medicine chest is discussed. Slave medicine is also explored. There is a nice piece on the first American "lady" doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell, who was admitted to medical school in the late 1840s by mistake. The dean of the college asked for a vote from the admissions committee. Thinking he was joking, the board all voted "aye," and the rest is medical history.

Two appendices round out the book. "Frontier Medical Dates" and "Old and Near-Forgotten Terms" provide a time line for the development of "hard" science and its departure from folk medicine. The second appendix contains an archaic knowledge of medical terminology, a wonderful resource.

Bethard also points out the overwhelming number of quacks and snake oil dealers who had neither interest nor training in medicine. Theirs was purely a profit motive. The atmosphere was not unlike the London of George Bernard Shaw's day, specifically his play "Doctor's Dilemma." There were no standards for medicine, giving anyone the ability to claim to be a doctor. These amoral types preyed on the ignorance and fear of their sick patients. Treatments were as varied (and ridiculous) as the number of "doctors" who dreamed them up.

The book closes with the notion that these snake oil dealers have been outlawed, that it is illegal to make claims that a product can "cure" a certain ailment or condition. We are certainly more sophisticated today, not throwing away billions of dollars every year on the latest diet craze, ab cruncher or hair-loss product. After all, who would be fool enough to buy snake oil -- in any form -- in the 21st century?

John Pate is an El Paso writer who writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction. He! is a graduate student at the University of Texas at El Paso.

It is very hard to figure out just what kind of book this is supposed to be. It is not really history - the stories are mostly unreferenced, and some of them are no more than anecdotes. The author clearly a very knowledgeable pharmacist, but there is no real systematic discussion of how the patent medicine formulations actually worked. As the other reviewers say, the book is intended to be funny, and I bet the author is a real character - his enthusiasm really comes through, though I had to admit I found the humor tiresome. The best thing about the book are the great color illustrations of rare and interesting patent medicines. The worst problem with the book is that it is totally disorganized - information appears almost at random, and it looks like nobody ever edited it. This makes it very hard to follow, and the mixture of stories, legends, and historical information makes the book fairly useless to a serious historian. The lists of ingredients and preparations on the other hand are really invaluable for anyone who is trying to understand frontier medicine.

Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs is an indispensible desk reference for anyone who writes the West. Not only is it a side-splitting pleasure to read, the book is chock full of information on every conceivable cure, poison, and snake-medicine ever sold or bought on the American frontier. Highly recommended.

The book is an informal narrative of potions, lotions and elixers used in the frontier west. For those looking for an easy read with some good entertainment this is a fine book. For those who are serious students of historical medicine the book is rather light and frothy. But in general the book provides an interesting insight into the conceptions of herbal medicine and how toxic or narcotic drugs were used during the 19th and early 20th century.

A must read for any historical re-enactor. A wonderful look into medicine in the 1800s, both legitimate and not-so-legitimate.

Easy reading and very entertaining.

As a pharmacist and amateur medical historian, I knew when I saw Ron Williamson's review in several pharmacy journals (appearing exactly as it did here) that I had to purchase this book.

We've come a long way but we still have a long way to go.