No Easy Cures for Country Doctors in Pennsylvania

Imagine being on call twenty-four hours a day. Imagine riding on horseback, with saddlebags that needed to contain remedies and the necessary tools of the trade for a country doctor.  

Early physicians made regular house calls in their communities.  Add in the emergencies that needed immediate attention, and the country doctor's life was anything but ordinary.

We share a store of articles in the Bloomsburg Morning Press that provide insight into the rigors in Columbia County. “In those early days to the pioneers of this section of Pennsylvania the old-time country doctor was a welcome visitor at their isolated homes. In those days the practice of medicine required good horsemanship, rugged health, and all the courage and endurance that the physician could command, for the roads were often mere muddy trails, the homes far apart, and the dangers of the forests and morasses were added to by the terrors of wild beasts and still more ferocious savages.”

Among the earliest doctors remembered in Columbia County was Dr. E.B. Bacon from Connecticut and Kingston. His practice extended from Catawissa to the headwaters of Fishing Creek. He moved to Wellsboro, Tioga County in 1817, and became a farmer.

“All of the earlier physicians were obliged to keep at least three good horses on hand at all times, for often when the doctor had ridden home from a twenty-mile trip he would have to retrace his tracks without sufficient time to make a change of clothes. And besides the hardships of the constant and long rides, the old physicians were expected to wait for their pay for an indefinite period. In the days of lack of currency and trading there was some excuse for this, but the physicians maintain they are still good waiters.”

One article from the Morning Press included the story of a doctor on his way to a call, who was held up by a highwayman. “Old doctors who have practiced in the county for many years still tell the story of one physician in the southern end of the county who was hurrying along a country road on his way to a lonely farmhouse when a highwayman sprang out from the roadside The unlucky doctor had to halt and give up all the money that he had before he could go on to his patient.”  Country roads were another problem. The accidents occurred when the doctor was driving too fast and had to deal with a runaway horse and an overturned buggy as well as any injuries he may have sustained.”

Saddlebags on his horses or a satchel in his buggy carried the doctor's medical supplies. Each morning before making his rounds, he had to replenish his supplies, received from a wholesale druggist who visited him once a week.

Quarantines in rural sections of Columbia County were rare. Measles did not necessitate a quarantine, but in smallpox cases, a piece of red cloth would be placed on a stick and displayed in the front yard of the affected home.

“Sometimes the work of a country physician has its exasperating or its funny side. Years ago, before the telephone was in use, word came to one of the county's oldest physicians, that he was needed at once at a farmhouse miles away, where he had a patient just recovering from a serious illness. Springing into his buggy, the physician drove madly in pitch darkness, until he reached the house. Not a light showed. Finally, in answer to his repeated knocking, a head emerged, from an upper window.

"Here I am! cried the doctor. "What's the trouble?" "Oh, is that you?" asked. the man at the window. "Why the boy's still pretty sick, and we wanted to know whether it would hurt him to eat a piece of cake."

In the early days, the town of Bloomsburg had no hospital, with Williamsport being the nearest medical facility. At times, country doctors needed to enlist the help of a family member to serve as nurses. Sterilization was done on the wood stove. More serious operations might include another physician if available. Amputations were done at home.

Over the years, the arrival of cars and telephones, new medical equipment, and modern medicines improved the country doctor's life.