Many of the collections in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Special Collections Library offer evidence of the drastic treatments visited upon their patients by 19th-century physicians.
You will inject a large tea spoonful of the solution in the large bottle up each nostril three times a day. . . . a half hour after each injection you will drop up each nostril six or eight of the Black drops. This was the sinus-rocking remedy prescribed about 1840 to Colbert Cecil of Pike County, Kentucky, for an unspecified ailment. About the same time, W. P. Payne recommended to his cousin the following treatment for cholera: In all cases of great puking and purging or cramp take 2 parts [of preparation] no. 6 & 1 part spirits of turpentine (warm) and rub the patients stomach bowels, spine legs & feet well with it.
Many physicians originally acted as their own apothecaries, not only prescribing but preparing the potions they recommended. With the late 19th-century separation of medicine and pharmacy into two distinct professions, however, patients began to take their prescriptions to a drugstore to be compounded by a pharmacist. In addition, the 20th century brought closer regulation of dangerous or addictive pharmaceuticals. Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections include evidence of these developments. Bowling Green druggist John E. Younglove, whose store was a fixture on the downtown square, kept recipes for pills, salves, tonics and other curatives for both humans and animals. In Glendale, Kentucky, Dr. Warner J. Shacklett recorded his orders for opiates as required by a 1914 federal law. In Hart County, doctors sometimes used prescription pads supplied by local drugstores, complete with advertising. When national prohibition restricted the dispensing of remedies containing alcohol, Dr. James O. Carson of Bowling Green wrote Lattie Robertson Coombs an order for medicinal liquor (to wit, a pint of whiskey) on a Treasury Department form for delivery to her druggist.
Maktaba ya WKU ya Makusanyo Maalum ya Makumbusho ya Manuscripts & Folklife inaonyesha jinsi madaktari wa karne ya 19 walivyotumia matibabu makali kwa wagonjwa wao. Kwa kawaida, mchuzi wa maji ya chai huingizwa kwenye kila pua mara tatu kwa siku. . . . Baada ya nusu saa ya kila sindano, kila pua itatupa matone sita hadi nane ya Black. Dawa hiyo ya kuondoa uvimbe wa sinus ilitolewa kwa Colbert Cecil wa Pike County, Kentucky, karibu mwaka wa 1840 kwa ajili ya ugonjwa usiojulikana. "W. P. Payne alimwambia binamu yake kwamba, ""Kwa sababu ya ugonjwa wa kipindupindu, kwa sababu ya kuvuja sana, kwa sababu ya kuvuja sana, au kwa sababu ya maumivu makali, chukua sehemu mbili za dawa hii.""" Kuchukua sehemu ya 6 ya turpentine (moto) na kupasua tumbo, utumbo, mgongo, miguu na miguu ya wagonjwa vizuri. Mwanzoni, madaktari wengi walitenda kama madaktari wao wenyewe, si kuagiza tu bali pia kutayarisha dawa walizopendekeza. Baada ya kugawanywa kwa dawa na dawa katika karne ya 19, wagonjwa walianza kuchukua dawa zao kwenye duka la dawa ili ziwe na dawa. Kwa kuongezea, karne ya 20 ilileta udhibiti wa karibu wa dawa hatari au zinazosababisha uraibu. Makusanyo ya Manuscripts & Folklife Archives yanaonyesha maendeleo hayo. Mtaalamu wa dawa wa Bowling Green, John E. Younglove, ambaye duka lake lilikuwa mahali pa kawaida katika uwanja wa katikati mwa mji, aliweka mapishi ya dawa, mafuta, toniki na dawa nyingine za kuponya kwa ajili ya wanadamu na wanyama. Katika Glendale, Kentucky, Dakt. Warner J. Shacklett alirekodi maagizo yake ya dawa za kulevya kama ilivyotakiwa na sheria ya shirikisho ya 1914. Katika Kaunti ya Hart, nyakati nyingine madaktari walitumia vijitabu vya dawa vilivyotolewa na maduka ya dawa ya mahali hapo, vikiwa na matangazo ya biashara. Wakati marufuku ya kitaifa ilipopiga marufuku utoaji wa dawa zenye pombe, Daktari James O. Carson wa Bowling Green alimwandikia Lattie Robertson Coombs agizo la pombe ya dawa (yaani, lita moja ya whiskey) kwenye fomu ya Idara ya Hazina ili itolewe kwa daktari wake.