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Remedies and Patent Medicines
In the nineteenth century, many rural
areas lacked physicians and hospitals. The scarcity of physicians and
a general distrust of doctors, most of whom were poorly educated, prompted
Warren Countians to use lay practitioners and home remedies for their
medical needs. People purchased patent medicines through mail-order
catalogs and from local druggists. Alcohol was the main ingredient of
the popular concoctions. Some used opium, cocaine, and other harmful
substances. Tonics were generally ineffective.
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Dentistry
Prior to the twentieth century,
physicians extracted teeth and fit dentures. In some isolated
communities anyone, including blacksmiths, pulled teeth. Carnival
"toothdrawers" pulled teeth as sideshow entertainment.
By the second half of the nineteenth century, many towns had
dental "parlors." Practitioners often traveled from
town to town, advertising their services in advance.
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Physicians
and the State Board of Health
During the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries diphtheria, cholera, yellow fever, typhoid,
influenza, scarlet fever, measles and tuberculosis killed hundreds
of thousands of residents. The State Board of Health, located
in Bowling Green from the late 1870s to the early 1910s, led
the fight against these illnesses by promoting good health practices,
proper sanitation, mass inoculations and isolation of those infected.
Although most physicians who practiced
in Warren County were white males, women and blacks began entering the
medical profession around 1900.
Internationally known Dr. Lillian H.
South, the first woman vice president (1913) of the American Medical
Association, led Kentucky's first hookworm campaign in 1912. As Kentucky
State Board of Health bacteriologist, she helped bring under control
many of the diseases that plagued the state. She once estimated that
she had prepared enough vaccine to inoculate 12 million Kentucky school
children.
African-American doctors Otho D. Porter,
Z. K. Jones and Walter F. Becket also provided health-care services
to Warren County citizens.
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Nursing
Nursing duties have traditionally
fallen to family members. Trained nurses were few in the nineteenth
century. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
hospitals and universities offered nursing programs. Upon its
opening in 1926 City Hospital operated a school of nursing until
1934 when it closed due to a lack of instructors. In 1962 Western
Kentucky University began a nursing program with a two-year Associate
of Science degree in Nursing. In 1976 Western added a four-year
Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree.
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Hospitals
For much of Warren County's
first 100 years, organized medical care facilities were not available.
As a result, local officials sometimes quarantined people with
infectious diseases in "pest houses" established for
the duration of an epidemic. During the Civil War Union and Confederate
troops converted several homes and churches into temporary, makeshift
hospitals.
In the early 1890s the Hagey
Institute treated patients with addictive disorders; a decade
later several physicians established "hospitals" and
"sanitoriums" in private residences. City Hospital,
opened in 1926, became Bowling Green-Warren County Hospital in
1952. In recent years, Greenview Regional Medical Center and
the Medical Center at Bowling Green have provided Warren Countians
with hospital care.
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