'MECCA' FOR THE CURE OR FOR THE DOCTOS

Post by Doris McCraw

writing as Angela Raines

The remedies listed below were taken from a book written in 1847 on the treatment of injuries and illnesses.

If you were suffering from asthma you might be treated with skunk cabbage root, taken as a syrup or dried, and smoked through a pipe. Earaches might be treated with the heart of a roasted onion placed in the ear. Toothaches, how about a pill composed of camphor and opium placed in the tooth, or if really bad, pulled by whoever was available.

If you were bitten by a rattlesnake you might drink a half a glass of olive oil, and apply some to the site of the bite.

Childbirth had either a female neighbor or if lucky a mid-wife present. Of course, if neither of those was available it became an individual or at most a family affair. The common practice of laying in, that is remaining in the birth bed, no clean sheets, etc. was not always practical for the woman in the West. Usually, there was too much to do to just lay around, so these hearty women were up an about more quickly than their Eastern counterparts.

One of the Mineral Springs located in the town of Manitou Springs

In the 1800s there were three types of doctors. Most practiced homeopathic medicine which started in the 1790s, a few practiced allopathic medicines which started or were given the name in the early 1800's and a few were osteopaths, which came into being around 1874. In the Pikes Peak Region, most early doctors practiced homeopathy. This included three of the four women who were practicing in the area prior to 1880. They were Julie E Loomis, Esther B Holmes, and Clara (Clararbel) Rowe. The fourth, Harriett Leonard was an allopath.

By the 1870's Colorado was known not only for the gold and silver they were pulling out of the mountains, but also an area for invalids to come to recover. Before then the area was a place of businesses, ranching, and some farming, some in remote areas. The early days didn't have the medical doctors that began arriving in the 1870s. Instead, most folks did their own doctoring or called a mid-wife, using some of the above remedies.

It the mid-1800's hygiene and sanitation made their way into the medical field. Prior to and even during the War Between the States, many doctors still did not clean their instruments or hands between surgeries or seeing patients. Once it became standard practice the mortality rate fell, but it wasn't until the 1920's that antibiotics came into use.

Dr. Samuel E. Solly
from Find a Grave website

Dr.Samuel Edwin Solly moved from England to Manitou Springs shortly after the town was founded in the hope that the air would help cures the tuberculous he and his wife had contracted. His wife did not survive her illness, but Solly did.  After regaining his health he sang the praises of the area far and wide. The region quickly became a mecca for health seekers. Into the mix of these migratory people came a number of doctors. The area around the base of Pikes Peak, the easternmost 14,000-foot peak in the Colorado Rocky Mountain Range, grew from a population of 3,000 in 1873 to around 10,000 by 1879. Of the twenty-plus doctors who were in the area in 1879 three were the women listed above, Julia E Loomis, Esther B Holmes, and Harriett Leonard. Clara Rowe appears to have arrived in late 1879 just prior to the 1880 census.

By 1881 Colorado began licensing physicians, just a year after the death of Julia E Loomis.

Julia E Loomis was born in New Woodstock, New York. After her marriage to John C Loomis she and JC as he was known moved around a great deal. While in Iowa, her daughter died at twenty-one, about a year after her marriage. It was after her daughter's death that Julia went to medical school. Julia was around fifty-four years old when she attended the Cleveland Homeopathic College for Women in Cleveland, Ohio and obtained her M.D on February 24, 1870. By 1878 she was in Colorado Springs and working to set up a clinic for the treatment of consumption (TB). She passed away in 1880 from pneumonia. Her 'death certificate' was signed by doctor E.B. Holmes. 

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Esther B. Holmes was born in Rhode Island and married in her mid-teens. Records indicate she also attended the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College for Women. Dr. Holmes was one of the early doctors to receive her Colorado license, #387 in 1882. She continued to practice in Colorado Springs until her death in 1910 at the age of sixty-five and according to the family she was known as the 'baby' doctor. 

Soda Springs in Manitou Springs prior to development 

The third doctor in the area was Harriet Leonard. In 1879 she was the proprietor of the Mineral Bath House in Manitou Springs. There she advertised Hot and Cold, Russian Vapor and The Electric Baths. She was a graduate of Keokuk College for Physicians and Surgeons in Keokuk, Iowa. The school came to Keokuk in late 1850 as a state-sponsored school and was a medical center until 1908 when it merged with Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. The school was also one of the early co-ed medical schools in the nation. 

Clara Rowe, the wife of F.G. Rowe, a man involved in insurance and loans, was also a graduate of the same Cleveland school as Holmes and Loomis. Clara Rowe also was licensed in the state of Colorado, receiving her license in 1881. After her husband's death around 1890, she moved to California and died there.

Both female and male doctors continued to arrive in Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, and Colorado City, as the area was one of opportunity for those who wanted to take the cure themselves while also caring and curing the sick.

For those who might like to know more, I have an article on Women Doctors in the Summer issue of 'Saddlebag Dispatches' Summer

Doris Gardner-McCraw -

Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History

Angela Raines - author: Telling Stories Where Love & History Meet

Books: Angela Raines Books

Website: Angela Raines - author

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