Lewis's Medical Training

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Lewis's Medical Training The expedition to the Pacific coast did not include a trained doctor. Meriwether Lewis was relied on as the the doctor of the expedition, and Lewis was the right man for the job. He learned many ways to use herbs to cure diseases and injuries from his mother, Lucy Marks. She was noted as a great herbalist in Lewis's hometown of Charlottesville. While Lewis was in the militia, one of his duties as officer was to care for the health of his soldiers. Even Lewis's past medical experiences, Jefferson still wanted Lewis to recieve more medical training from America's top physician, Dr. Benjamin Rush. Under Benjamin Rush, Lewis learned the modern medical practices of that time.

Training Under Lucy Marks and Benjamin Rush
Lucy Marks was noted as a great herbalist in Charlottesville. Marks tended to her family's health needs, her slaves' needs, and needs of neighbors for miles around. Herbal medicine was very common in colonial America. Many people did not trust physicians' ways of health and were not willing to opay their high fees. In most cases, people only went to physicians during a time of dire need. The first way of treating diseases was using medicinal herbs that were grown in their own gardens, such as lavender, sage, and thyme. Marks grew many medicinal plants and put them into many different concoctions and other midical compositions to treat the sick. Marks's interest in health issues was passed on to her children when Reuben, Meriwether's full brother, and half brother John, became physicians.
 
Benjamin Rush trained Lewis in Philadelphia. He taught him how to treat common injuries such as wounds and cuts, and how to treat diseases. Rush also taught Lewis eleven rules of health:
1. When you fel the least indisposition, do not attempt to overcome it by labor or marching. Rest in a horizontal posture. Also fasting and diluting drink for a day or two will generally prevent an attack or fever. To these preventatives of disease may be added a gentle sweat obtained by warm drinks, or gently opening the bowels by means of one, two or more of the purging pills.
2. Unusual costiveness is often a sign of approaching disease. When you feel it take one or more of the purging pills.
3. Want of appetite is likewise a sign of approaching indisposition. When you feel it take one or more of the purgign pills.
4. In difficult and laborious enterprises and marches, eating sparingly will enable you to bear them with less fatigue and less danger to your health.
5. Flannel should be worn constantly next to th eskin, especially in wet weather.
6. The less spirit you use the better. After being wetted or much fatigued, or long exposed to the night air, it should be taken in an undiluted state. 3 tablespoons taken in this way will be mor euseful in preventing sickness, than half a pint mixed with water.
7. Molasses or sugar & water with a few drops of the acid of vitriol will make a pleasant & wholesome drink with your meals.
8. After having had your feet much chilled, it will be useful to wash them with a little spirit.
9. Washing the feet every morning in cold water, will conduce very much to fortify them against the action of cold.
10. After long marches, or fatigue from any cause, you will be more refreshed by lying down in a horizontal posture for two hours, than by resting a much longer time in any other position of the body.
11. Shoes made without heels, by affording equal action to all the muscles of the legs, will enable you to march with less fatigue, than shoes made in the ordinary way.**
**Courtsey of David J. Peck, Or Perish in the Attempt: Wilderness Medicine in the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Helena, MT: Farcountry Press, 2002, Pg. 50.