With all the attention on the nation's health care policies these days, it seems appropriate to look back one hundred and twenty years ago, to 1890 when medical problems of local citizens were treated by health care workers plying their trade in Menomonie.

With city's population approaching the 5,000 mark it was necessary to have competent medical doctors to care for everyday ills and more serious medical needs. There was a hospital providing aid for expectant mothers that was operated by a Mrs. Finley, perhaps one of a handful of midwives in town. However most hospitals established in the second half of the 19th century were primarily established to provide care, not treatment, of the inhabitants.

Physicians customarily diagnosed and treated illness, delivered babies, and even performed in their patients' homes or in their offices. By the late 1880s and early 1890s Menomonie had eight ; E. O Baker, E. H. Grannis, E. P. Wallace, F. R. Reynolds, D. H. Decker, J. V. R. Lyman, W. F. Nichols, and much to the relief of lady patients, there was a woman doctor, Miss Kate Kelsey, ready to serve.

However many families at that time relied on home remedies that had been handed down by family tradition, and the newspapers and magazines of the time were filled with advertisements of such products as the Kickapoo Indian Sagwa. It was a blend of roots, herbs, and bark, concoction that "purifies the blood, and cures all diseases of the stomach, liver, and kidneys."

A "Dr. Buckland" produced a "Scotch Oats Essence" that would cure, " sleeplessness, paralysis, an opium habit, drunkenness, neuralgia, sick headaches, sciatica, nervous dyspepsia, locomotor , headache, ovarian neuralgia, nervous exhaustion, epilepsy, and St. Vitus's dance." Who need a doctor when a one dollar bill is all you need to get a bottle of Dr. Buckland's Essence?

W. R. Smart, a simple private citizen of Dodgeville, was a man he proved you didn't need the moniker "DR." to sell his "Smart's Rheumatic & Neuralgic Paste". This "cure all" would eliminate "toothache, nervous headache, neuralgia, pain in the back, chilblains, and catarrh." His "paste" was made of "oil of angleworm, cayenne pepper, a frog [or part of one?], and gum camphor"! If his remedy didn't cure there were hundreds of other possible products available throughout the market.

Now it is quite possible that some of these concoctions actually worked, and perhaps some true medical doctor might find recommending them for an ailing patient, but more likely than not, the would write a prescription that could be filled by a local pharmacist. Menomonie had six drugstores operating in town in 1890.

In past articles I've written about O. K. Ranum, an early druggist who operated his store on the ground floor and the western half of the former Goodrich Furniture Store on the southwest corner of Main, Crescent, and Fourth Streets. He was also manager of the Menomonie Telephone Company that maintained its switchboard on the floor above.

George Tonnar operated his drugstore in the 300 block of Main Street near Ranum's store, and perhaps on the same side of the street. G.E. Godding maintained his drugstore in the 600 Block of South Broadway. Alfred Pillsbury established his in the West Side Hotel. Unfortunately because of the dozen or more hotels in Menomonie's business district at that time, and because the names of many hotels changed when new owners took over, I am not sure at this time where that hotel was located.

William Hewett maintained his pharmacy in a home on the northwest corner of today's Main and 9th Street, and Francis D. Johnson operated out of a home on the corner of 12th Street and Main. It appears that the city and its doctors had ready sources for medical remedies in the liquid, powders, and pills in stock on hand in these drugstores.

While most of the mentioned here dealt primarily in on prescription drugs, and very little in other lines of products not related to medical needs, O. K. Ranum's advertised not only "Pure Drugs, and Chemicals", he also sold "Fancy goods, Toilet Articles, Cigars, Pocket Cutlery, Stationery, Perfumery, etc."

It appears that Menomonie, with its eight medical doctors and six drugstores, was adequately prepared for almost any health emergency. Well, that wasn't quite true. When in the first decade of the twentieth century the tuberculosis death rate per 10,000 was in Dunn County, according the book Wisconsin , the county "nearly equaled that of the state as a whole. Incidence of the disease in at least several Dunn County townships equaled that reported for Milwaukee."

It is true that one cannot take good health for granted.

This late 1880s photograph is of the management and employees of a local drugstore in Menomonie, but there is no indication who was the proprietor. Note the shelves along the walls filled with medicinal cures and reference books. Note the glass case on the left that is filled with boxes of cigars, especially the popular Optimo brand that is still popular today. A large white sign hanging above advertises another brand of cigar, perhaps one of Menomonie's cigar maker's product. Boxed chocolates and other candies are displayed in the glass case on the right.

Note the stuffed while pelican, an annual visitor to the Menomonie area lakes each spring. In this case the poor bird never got further north than Menomonie