Hello everyone! Today we are going to
spend a couple minutes talking about
medicine on the Lewis and Clark
Expedition.
My name is Dana Morrison and I am with
the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center
and Fort Mandan. So this is a topic that
you can spend hours talking about.
In their almost three year journey they
certainly encountered a lot of medical
emergencies and ailments that they had
to treat but we're just gonna highlight
a few of the major incidences that they
encountered on their expedition.
Now Lewis and Clark they did not have a
doctor with them and that could have
been for a number of reasons whether it
was because Lewis met with Dr. Benjamin
Rush one of the most preeminent doctors
of the time and so it was decided well
they probably don't need a doctor if
they have all this knowledge or the fact
that military regulations said that you
need at least 45 men to have one surgeon
and the Lewis and Clark Expedition did
not have 45 military men so that could
have been a reason as well. Regardless
they seemed to do just fine without it.
Lewis and Clark were very capable in
taking care of their men. So we're going to
explore a little bit in this trunk
something similar to what Lewis would
have purchased and outfitted for about
$90. So this is full of medication and
full of medical instruments that they
would have brought with them. Now we'll
go through a few of the the medicines
and kind of describe a particular event
that went on associated with that
medicine. This one you could bring up
a lot of examples: this is Dr.
Benjamin Rush's thunderclappers, a very
famous pill that Lewis and Clark brought
with them on their expedition. It has
mercury in it and the idea is to purge
the body. You've got something bad in,
you've got to get it out. That was the goal of these pills. They brought 600 of these
pills with them on their expedition and
they ran out before they returned home
so they were pretty liberal in giving
these out. One example
of doling these out is the death
Sergeant Charles Floyd. Now he didn't die
because of these because they were laced
with mercury they believed that he died
of a burst appendix. But not knowing what was wrong with him wanting to get
whatever bad stuff is in him out of him,
Lewis would have administered Dr. Rush's
thunderclappers. He also would have bled
Sergeant Floyd and so we've got an
example here of kind of different
instruments used to bleed a person
again getting bad stuff out of you by
way of bleeding the person. But of course
despite all their best efforts Sergeant
Floyd did end up passing away from an
ailment that nothing could have been
done to save him unfortunately.
Another piece of medicine that was brought along
is Peruvian Bark, which you see here.
Of that $90 that they spent to outfit
their medical trunk $30 was spent on
Peruvian Bark alone so obviously very
important to them. Now this would be used
to reduce fevers or to help with malaria,
to help aid in that aspect. Again very
much across-the-board used on different
people it was also used on Sacagawea.
In June of 1805, just a few months
after they leave Fort Mandan, she becomes
very very ill. We're not sure exactly
what ails her. It has been thought to be
an inflammatory pelvic infection or
gonorrhea perhaps. Lots of speculation on
to what that was but we do know the
treatment that she got from Lewis.
Peruvian Bark was one of them, trying to
reduce that fever. Dr. Rush's thunderclappers
was another. She was also bled and
given water was sulfur and iron in it.
It was a little touch-and-go for a while.
They weren't sure if she was going to
survive but it ended up that she was
able to heal from that ailment and
continue on, which is huge for the
expedition. If she would have passed away
it would have been a completely
different expedition. Another big medical
event is also associated with Sacagawea
and that is the birth of her child.
to aid in that Lewis helped to try
to get the the baby to come but it was a
very long, arduous, painful, intense labor
session so the the cure or to help get
the baby out didn't come from Lewis or
Clark it actually came from the Mandan
interpreter that they had hired named
Rene Jussaume and he suggested taking the
rattle of a rattlesnake, crushing it up
into water, having her drink it. They were
a little skeptical it seems but again
after hours of labor they thought, "Well it
can't hurt," so they they did that for her
and within ten minutes her son Jean
Baptiste Charbonneau is born. Now it's
hard to tell whether or not it was just
a coincidence or if the rattle actually
helped but I'm sure she certainly felt
relieved after being able to finally
give birth to her son. There are
different instances along the expedition
as well that are not just easily cured
by ingesting medicine. Of course I
mentioned the bloodletting,
that would be one way a little more
intense. Another thing that they have to
be prepared for as well is stitches. You
can be going through brush and
using a knife and it happened a few
times where someone cut themselves in
their leg as that's happening and so
Lewis would have to administer stitches
and it's not always stitches to people.
there was one instance of where his dog,
Seaman, was bitten by a beaver on the
artery and started to bleed quite
heavily. They would have had to put pressure on
the wound. Whether or not they they used
a tourniquet similar to this, we're not
sure or if they just put physical
pressure with their hands, but they were
able to get the bleeding under control.
Lewis stitched the wound up and a
week later Seaman was was pretty healthy, back to helping guard make sure that
everything's okay so all was able to be
okay
with Seaman. There are other instances of Lewis again doing a little more intense
surgery as well and that happened here
at Fort Mandan. During that winter there
was a Mandan boy who was exposed to the
cold. He was outside all night with only
a buffalo roam and his feet got severely
frostbitten. Lewis initially tried to
cure it by putting the boy's feet in the
snow, you know fight cold with cold.
Of course that's not really gonna help any,
you don't fight cold with cold
as we know nowadays, and of course that
didn't work back and then either.
So Lewis had to perform some surgery.
Specifically he would have had to take
an amputation knife similar to this and
amputate toes on both feet but he was
able to help out the boy and he was
paid in food as service for that. So you
do have a small amputation knife. They
would have brought something larger as
well just in case they needed it. There
are certainly a lot of other ailments
along the way including venereal disease,
which they also get here. That is
something that Lewis and Clark planned
for. They they did bring syringes in
order to inject mercury into their
patients so they either ingested it like
I said with the syringes or they just
rubbed mercury onto the person afflicted
with the disease. So it wasn't a surprise
that they got venereal
diseases, although it sounds like it was
pretty miserable to deal with as you can
imagine and certainly miserable to treat
as well knowing what we know now about
mercury and the fact that it can poison
you. And again the list goes on about all
the things that they encountered you
know Lewis was shot along the way, people
suffered from malaria, rheumatism, scurvy
the list goes on. But I just wanted to
give you a little taste today and show
you different products that they would
have brought with them to help them get
better on their expedition. If you want
to learn more about anything you can
certainly come visit us here at the
Interpretive Center, we'd love to have a
discussion with you and kind of explore
all the fascinating aspects of the
medicine of the expedition. Or we do have
a few books available in our store, and
certainly other places. We've got if you
want to learn more about the venereal
diseases we've got that book. This is
called "Or Perish in the Attempt" and "Only
One Man Died." These are a few really good
books on the expedition, certainly a lot
more that you can explore as well. But I
hope you enjoyed this video and
learning just a taste about all the
medical emergencies and ailments that
they had to deal with on the expedition.
And we hope that you want to learn more
so thanks for joining us
