Primary source analysis
This essay aims at analyzing two primary historical research concerning the major problems in American medicine and public health. The paper will attempt to use the primary sources to understand what it can reveal about the past and the impacts the problems had in the health sector. The first source to get analyzed consist of a document with an excerpt entitled, Every Man His Doctor: Or the Poor Planters Physician. The paper, as mentioned above, was reissued during the colonial era more than a dozen times before the revolutionary war erupted. It was regarded as one of the earliest American popular guides to health care (Lorimer, 2019). John Tennent who was born in Virginia widely ascribed the volume of this excerpt by putting a lot of emphasis on the singularity of the illness arising from the American land and the climate, as well as providing necessary recommendations of inexpensive remedies that grew in the American soil. Another seventh document came from a short history of the Ottawa nation that was written in 1887 by Andrew Blackbird. This author was the son of the Ottawa chief and was brought up in the traditional ways in Michigan (Billeaudeaux & Scott, 2019). Blackbird managed to recount a story from the oral tradition of the Indians concerning the depopulation of the large Ottawa community along the upper shores of Lake Michigan. The British people had sent a tin box containing smallpox scabs to kill the Indian allies of their regions of the French. This was a clear indication that people at this time heavily relied on traditional medicine that only specialists could be able to identify and help in the treatment. Smallpox resulted in tremendous death cases to the Indians because it was a new disease in the region, and its treatment could take longer to get discovered (Odebiyi & Sunal, 2020).
The second source is that of Le Page du Pratz, a French observer in Louisiana who reported on Natchez Nation Healing Practices from 1720 through 1728. The reporter denotes that he got infected with fistula lacrymal on the left eye. The eye was discharging humour when pressed, and it portended a lot of danger (Billeaudeaux & Scott, 2019). He decided to seek medical attention at M. St Hilaire, who was an able surgeon during that time with vast experience of about twelve years in the Hotel Dieu at Paris. This doctor recommended the use of fire so that the reporter’s sight could regain its standard shape. It was seemingly that the eye problem could result in affecting the nose bone had he not reported the matter as early as possible. However, the reporter was terrified of the operation, until when he was visited by the great sun and an individual physician (Odebiyi & Sunal, 2020). These two people came to the reporter’s rescue by the physician recommending the use of simples and ordinary water. The physician put the simples in a basin of water and made the reporter bend into it so that the affected eye should stand deep quite open in the water. He managed to do so for about eight to ten days both in the morning and evening. He managed to get entirely cured, and the disorder never returned ( Billeaudeaux & Scott, 2019 ).
The two sources together clearly suggest that the traditional method of providing a cure in the past was beneficial. It managed to offer control, stability and prevention of various diseases and unhealthy conditions (Lorimer, 2019). Both sources reveal a lot about the traditional ways of providing nursing and care most notably form the habit of curing the eye without undergoing an operation.
References
Billeaudeaux, B., & Scott, R. E. (2019). Leveraging Existing Frameworks to Support Undergraduate Primary Source Research. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 58(4), 246-256.
Lorimer, M. R. (2019). Engaging Adolescent Struggling Readers ThroughDecision-Making Role-Play Simulation: Using Primary Sources Documents. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 35(3), 193-203.
Odebiyi, O. M., & Sunal, C. S. (2020). Social Studies Curricula: Interpreting and Using African Primary Source Documents. Journal of International Social Studies, 10(1), 35-61.