When sickness or pain pays a visit, we often reach for a familiar commercial remedy in the medicine cabinet. If we forgot to restock. Never mind. A quick trip to the corner convenience store or local pharmacist will usually fix what ails us. Medical centers treat every disease with the latest medical methods. Did you break it? Perhaps a more critical injury has interrupted the daily routine. Nevertheless, modern convenience offers peace of mind. Hospitals are generally available and emergency rooms are open 24 hours a day.

The lives we live today are a far cry from the challenges faced on the frontier. In 1942 the Kansas State Nurses Association sponsored “Lamps on the Prairie, A History of Nursing in Kansas.” Compiled by the Writers’ Program of the Kansas Work Projects Administration, “Lamps on the Prairie” recounted many dramatic stories of perseverance and innovation among the hearty souls that chose to make early Kansas their home.

If a frontier physician was available, he may have a general anesthetic at his disposal for broken bones, axe gashes, gangrenous extremities, or similar afflictions. General anesthetic was developed in 1846. Otherwise, when no doctor was available the patient or his friends did the best they could. The writers of Lamps on the Prairie declared, “Their best was sometimes remarkable,” as in the following cases.

The screams that brought a mother rushing to the yard outside her frontier home revealed the scene of an all-too-common accident on frontier homesteads. While in the act of cutting firewood the ax slipped from the older brother’s hands. In the blink of an eye bloody fragments of three of the younger brother’s fingers were lying among the wood chips. Snatching them up the mother quickly carried them to the wash tub with her injured son in tow. The fragments and the pitiful severed stumps were washed with “strong” soap and water before the valiant mother bound the pieces back to their rightful place. Two of the “grafts” successfully grew back in place, “one of them with a nail slightly askew.”

In another instance a rattlesnake bit a young man. Soon the poisoned leg began to swell. Recognizing the danger to his son’s life the father used a knife and saw to amputate the leg. “The boy recovered.” Even the presence of a competent surgeon could sometimes be unworkable. Incredibly, Mrs. Nancy Rogers performed a surgery that defies belief. She was a practical nurse who had come to Wichita in 1869 with two sons. Popular and proficient, Mrs. Rogers recognized the need to treat herself for cancer of the breast, sometime in the late 1870’s. She consulted physician and surgeon Dr. Henry Owens of the city who confirmed the diagnosis. The doctor proposed amputation, “and asked twentyfive dollars in cash for the operation.” He would accept nothing less. Unable to raise the money Mrs. Rogers left the doctor’s office, quietly driving home in her wagon.

At home she set about cooking a week’s worth of food for her sons, telling them that she would be staying with a patient. A nightgown was placed in a large basket along with “a quantity of muslin rags, food, and a butcher knife.” One son drove her to town in the wagon. He was told to come back in a week to pick her up. A room for the week cost $2.

Once locked away in her room Mrs. Rogers sat on the edge of the bed and proceeded to remove her own breast, carefully cutting the diseased tissue away. “How she managed to survive the shock and to bandage herself is unknown, but she lived for many years.”

Far out on the plains of western Kansas, Mr. and Mrs. William P. Loucks took up a homesteading claim in the late 1870s. The cattle range of Kearney County was just opening up to settlers hoping to build a life on farmland of their own. Mrs. Amy Loucks was determined to be prepared for unexpected emergencies, and being well educated, read all the medical information she could find. With the nearest doctor at Fort Dodge, 75 miles away, she was frequently called upon to implement her knowledge of the healing arts for her isolated neighbors. When a severely wounded man miraculously survived an Indian attack, Mrs. Loucks was called to his bedside. His scalp was so nearly removed that it hung forward over his eyes.”

“Without hesitation Mrs. Loucks sent to the general store for a fine violin string and a bottle of carbolic acid.” The violin’s string was soaked in the acid before threading the string through a large needle. In short order the man’s scalp was stitched back into place.

In another case, Mrs. Loucks skillfully amputated three crushed fingers with a razor and a pair of embroidery scissors.

From border-to-border stories of remarkably heroic surgical procedures tell a story of survival often performed with domestic equipment and rarely recalled, except of course, on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray can be reached at 220 21st Road, Geneseo, Ks. Phone: (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.