Frontier Fever: The Silly, Superstitious-And Sometimes Sensible-Medicine of the Pioneers

by Elizabeth Van Steenwyk

Discusses the home remedies and healing beliefs of the Pilgrims through the settlers of the 1890s, revealing outlandish "cures" as well as the more effective ones

Genres: History

144 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1995

About the author

Elizabeth Van Steenwyk is the award-winning author of more than seventy published books for young people. After graduating from Knox College, she went on to spend ten years writing for radio and television with a concentration on children's programming. She lives in California.

Reviews

[Tamatha Picolla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book did as exactly promised; it discussed the quackery of the medical profession until the early 1900’s. I was able to glean some information for the effect on the women the Industrial Revolution and Dr. Benjamin Rush.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 122 page book covers a lot of territory about medicine from the late 1700's to the early 1900's. I thought it was very interesting. It is hard to believe what the early "quacks" used to try and heal people. England had the best education for medicine and it finally, (thank goodness) seeped over to the US. It's a wonder that anyone survived a doctor's help in the early days.