Mobile Medicine, 18th-Century Style
During my visit to the semiquincentennial celebration at New York’s Fort Ticonderoga, volunteer re-enactors helped Fort Ticonderoga interpreters portray a “flying hospital,” which provided immediate care to sick and wounded soldiers. At Fort Ticonderoga, these mobile medical operations handled devastating waves of camp illnesses, such as smallpox and dysentery.
This scenario represented injured or ill soldiers arriving at Fort Ticonderoga by boat, being treated at the temporary hospital, and then transported by Conestoga wagon to a better-equipped permanent hospital.
Nurses, Laundresses, and the Work of Care
In order to treat the wounded and diseased, military officers hired non-professional nurses from the camp followers who traveled alongside the army. In addition to nurses treating the symptoms of illness and injury, laundresses worked to maintain cleanliness of the linens used to clothe and bandage the soldiers.
The Flying Hospital in Action
Medicine Without Modern Medicine
Without the aid of a surgeon or doctor, nurses relied on printed reference material (like the pamphlet “Every man his own doctor, or, The poor planter’s physician,” which used herbal remedies to treat the symptoms of known ailments.) Additional apothecary knowledge and receipts (or recipes) could be recorded and taught to new nurses.
Remedies from the Natural World
Much of 18th-century medicine relied on natural botanical compounds to treat the symptoms of illness. These ingredients might be imported and purchased, foraged, or home-grown, according to their rarity and special use.
