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Frantic pounding on the front door of Nellie Pooler Chapman’s home forced the petite woman out of a deep sleep, off of her bed, and onto her feet. She quickly lit a nearby candle, threw on her robe, and hurried to answer the desperate person knocking and calling out for help.

As soon as Nellie opened the door, a scruffy miner pushed his way inside. His left hand was holding his left cheek and tears were streaming down his face. “I’ve got to see the doc,” he pleaded. Nellie left the door standing open as she brushed her mussed hair from her face. “The doctor isn’t here,” she informed the man. “He’s in Nevada looking for silver.” The miner groaned in pain and cried even harder. “You’ve got to help me,” he insisted. “I’ve got a bad tooth and it’s killing me.” Nellie stared back wide-eyed at the suffering man. “I’m not a dentist,” she told him. “I don’t know how to removed a bad tooth.”

The man drew in a quick breath and winched. He was in agony. “You’ve watched him work, though,” he reminded her. “You know what to do. Please,” he begged. Nellie thought about it for a moment, then ushered the tormented patient into the dental office in the back of the house. “I’ll try,” she told him.

Nellie’s introduction into the field of dentistry was dramatic, but it suited her. She went on to become the first licensed dentist in the Old West.

To learn more about Nellie Pooler Chapman and other lady healers on the frontier read The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West.

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Woman Doctor demonstrates operation to class – 1883

The rough-and-tumble town of Deadwood, South Dakota was home to a variety of notorious western characters in the mid-1800s. Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and Calamity Jane were just a few of the infamous names associated with the gold-mining camp. These three legends of the West were at one time patients of the first woman doctor in the area, Doctor Flora Hayward Stanford. Doctor Stanford opened a practice in Deadwood in 1888 and began seeing to the healthcare needs of hundreds of prospectors, prostitutes, business owners, and their families. She entered the medical profession late in her life, receiving her degree from Boston University of Medicine in 1878, at the age of forty.

To learn more about lady healers on the frontier read

The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West.

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The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West

Women Medical Students – 1902

In the beginning, the prejudice female doctors encountered was displayed by women as well as men. Many women felt they would be better served by male doctors, who were taken seriously as professionals. A female doctor, by contrast, was considered merely a healer – unable to determine what was really wrong with a patient.

In hopes of dispelling that stereotype, women touted their expertise in a variety of publications. The following ad, for instance, appeared in a February 24, 1882, San Francisco newspaper: To the Ladies – Madame Costello, Female Physician, still continues to treat, with astonishing success, all diseases peculiar to females. Madame C can be consulted at her residence, 34 Lispenard Street.

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The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West

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The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West

Women studying medicine – late 1890s.

When Omaha Indian woman, Susan La Flesche Picotte entered the Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia in October 1886, she became the first Native American women to attend school to study medicine. The heavy course load for her first semester consisted of classes in chemistry, anatomy, obstetrics, and general medicine. In addition to her class work, she observed clinical practice at the women’s hospital, took weekly examinations in all her subjects, and learned how to dissect the human body. Other women had trouble with the dissections, but Susan did not mind the procedure: “The students and I laugh and talk up there just as we do anywhere,” Susan recalled in her journal. “Six students take one body…and [it] is divided into six parts. Two take the head…two the chest…two the abdomen and legs. Then we take off little by little…It is interesting to get all the arteries and the branches. Everything has a name…from the tiny holes to the bones. It is splendid.”

For more stories about lady healers on the frontier read The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West.

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The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West

Women on wagon trains heading west were responsible not only for preparing the food and making it last through the journey but were also in charge of overall healthcare for the others. Armed with herbal medicine kits and journals filled with remedies, women administered doses of juniper berries, garlic, and bitter roots to cure the ailing. Theses “granny remedies,” as they were called, were antidotes for a variety of illnesses from nausea to typhoid. There were a combination of superstition, religious beliefs, and advice passed down from generation to generation. A few samples of these remedies were as follows: The hot blood of chickens cures shingles, gold filings in honey restores energy, the juice of a green walnut cures ringworms, and owl broth cures whooping cough.

For more remedies and tales about lady healers on the frontier read

The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West.