Rogue River People living in isolation in the 1800’s along the Rogue River relied on each other instead of doctors.
A Gold Beach doctor, Dr. James Spence, visited upriver residents, but after each harrowing boat ride he swore he’d never go back. Miners either ignored medical problems until they died in their cabins, or consulted someone, not infrequently a grandmother of Indian descent, who treated each ailment with different leaves and roots.
Spence used poultices or tar for infections and various teas for aches and pains. He packed rattlesnake bites with mud and painfully adjusted broken bones and tied them up to heal.
Self-taught midwives, traveling long distances between homesteads, saved many mothers and babies. It was understood along the Rogue that three gunshots, fired in rapid succession, meant someone was in crisis. Anyone within hearing distance was expected to drop everything and rush to help.
Meadows along the Rogue River canyon are scattered with the graves of those who couldn’t be cured of appendicitis or pneumonia, who hemorrhaged to death after childbirth or an accident, who drowned, or whose mental state resulted in suicide.
Source: Atwood, Kay. Illahe, The Story of Settlement in the Rogue River Canyon. 1978 edition. Medford Oregon: Gandee Printing Center, Inc, 1978. 73-74. Print.
