Country doctors once did it all: pulling teeth, delivering babies
By Erin Blakemore, Washington Post, August 5, 2018
The term “country doctor” may call a horse and buggy to mind. But handling a horse used to be just one of a rural doctor’s many skills. A country doctor might be called on to practice dentistry, dispense prescriptions and deliver babies over a wide swath of territory.
The Country Doctor Museum brings that history to life. The Bailey, N.C., museum is dedicated to interpreting the history of medicine in rural America--a history that spans 200 years.
With the help of docents, visitors tour three buildings and a medicinal herb garden, learning the stories of physicians and nurses and how they cared for their patients. There’s an authentic 19th-century apothecary, a collection of exam tables and bloodletting devices, and a carriage house filled with a buggy, a surrey, and a Model T.
Today’s rural health practitioners face some of the same challenges their predecessors did. There are far fewer physicians available to people living in rural areas than in cities, and those who do practice medicine there face geographic barriers, limited funding and patients with shorter life expectancies.
The Country Doctor Museum puts those challenges into context. It’s a reminder that resilient practitioners have always found a way to care for their patients--even if long miles in a buggy were part of the job.
