American Doctors In The 1800s

In the beginnings of America, the people of our society always treated others based off of their race. In the early nineteenth century, there was still many plantations running and the medical field was just starting to expand and grow with its knowledge. While the doctors were less educated, they still were looked upon as high members of their society. During this time period there were many diseases affecting slaves and slave owners. The doctors would come in and try to give treatments to help the symptoms of these diseases. Some diseases were, “Epidemics of cholera, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and yellow fever, and concerns about sanitation and hygiene, led many city governments to create departments of health.” (Fillmore Randolph). Most of these diseases were more prominent based off of their location in the United States, but most professional doctors had to go from town to town, to try to cure the
While the doctors were giving treatments, their work area was not very sanitary and that caused a high risk of infection. Also, most of the doctors had no idea what they were doing because they had no formal education of medicine. In the 1800s most of the medicine practiced was based off of a logical guess then prayers to get better. Soon the sickness was only identified by its symptoms rather than the sickness itself. Most treatments went straight to bleeding, and sometimes the given medicine could lead to mercury poisoning, (Patients and Poisons). So, while the doctors would have trial and error from the people who could afford them, they rarely visited any slaves. Only the slave owners could try to reach out for a doctor and it was costly towards them because doctors were not cheap. From the fact that the doctors rarely visited slaves, the slaves in the early nineteenth century started practicing