The "Medicine Man"

       On a ledge behind the horse stalls, along with the currycomb and brush, Grandfather kept an assortment of bottled goods bought from peddlers. These peddlers drove about the country, making regular calls. Those that represented the larger patent medicine houses generally had a bright red or yellow buggy and a spanking team of horses. Others carried a variety of salves, ointments, elixirs, and liniments in a suitcase and got about in a hired rig from the livery stable in the village. They were personable characters with what was known as "the gift of gab," and they could smell a chicken dinner for miles. 

       One of the standbys on the ledge was Sloan's Liniment. Grandpa wouldn't have thought of farming without a bottle of this marvelous panacea. Let a bump, swelling, cut, bruise, spavin, fistula, or sprain appear on a horse, and Grandpa brought out the Sloan's. He didn't hesitate to use it on himself or the hired man. It was, and is, a potent concoction, and applied to the bare skin was a counterirritant powerful enough to make you forget anything less than a compound fracture. 

       Sloan's Liniment was for the exterior surfaces of man and beast. There were other and equally universal remedies for the inner ills and pains of livestock. The label said a dose would cure colic, scours, bloat, abortion, and constipation. They were effective, too, in relieving undiagnosed ills commonly referred to in humans as the miseries, but in animals as the epizootic. 

       Regardless of what the label on the bottle or the colorful posters hanging in the blacksmith shop said, Grandfather wouldn't buy until he had sniffed the contents. If his snifter made him reel and raised his hat off his head, then it must be good. If it wasn't more than a dollar he bought it. 

       Veterinarians were scarce and poorly trained and not very popular. Grandfather preferred to make his own diagnoses and do his own doctoring. If, by any chance, the bottled magic failed to do the work at hand, Grandfather was not stumped. He had a lot of superstitious hocus-pocus at his command in an emergency. For example, chewing tobacco and kerosene, taken internally and rubbed on, was good for tetanus, or lockjaw; an old sock, smeared with grease and forced down a cow's throat, cured bloat and in- digestion; if a dog had mange, a copper wire hung around its neck soon checked it; and if a horse got stubborn and lazy, Grandfather laid a board across his head and gave it a smart whack with a hammer. He also treated for diseases that never existed, like hollow tail and hollow horn. 

       When the Foods and Drugs Act came in the patent medicine people had to back up their claims for the universal powers of their goods. Most of them went out of business. The colleges began turning out well- trained veterinarians; grandfather's grandson took four years at the state college, and now runs the farm. Livestock therapy is more complicated today, but the livestock are better off. 

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