Margaret's Self Abuse and Dr. King's Prescriptions for Treatment

Treatment for self abuse

TRANSLATION OF TEXT IN IMAGE

Mrs. Margaret L. Knight, widow, with three children. Vermilion Ill.  Edgar Co, 

Sequences of self abuse

July 1 1889 received 40 dollars in full am exp by ashley lloyd (Nelson Ashley ran the business at LLoyd Pharmacy.)

No. 1

shorthand for R. Cimicifuga

Rumex Crisp. (short for Rumex Crispus) Yellow Dock Roots 

Calisaya (was a liquor made with cinchona bark) 

Sassafras

Xanthax Bacc. (form of xanthum gum)

Ferri Pyphosphorph gm. 64

For 1 quart of syrup

Dose. Tablespoon, 3 ts’ a day, before meals

No. 2.

 Ph Phosph, Iron, ? and Alcohol of Nux.(short for Nux Vomica) 1 3 tis a day after meals.

These different ingredients have some recognizable and not so recognizable components. The most important one in these ingredients is R. Cimicifuga or black cohosh. It is used by women even today for hot flashes. 

 Another Professor, in speaking of Cimicifugin, remarks :

" This medicine is, in its effects, essentially the same as the Cimicifuga. It is particularly useful in chronic rheumatic affections, and in female diseases. In leucorrhea and dysmenorrhea, as well as menorrhagia, it is invaluable. It should be used, in order to get its best effects, to the extent of producing its specific constitutional symptoms, i. e. a peculiar dizziness, fullness and dull aching of the head, and more or less aching in the joints. This effect should be produced every day (slightly) during the treatment, until the disease is removed. By this treatment, and the use of hip-baths, leucorrhea will often be cured in a week or ten days, without any other remedy."

"It is also a very useful agent in the treatment of small-pox, in which it should be given during the whole course of the disease. It seems to divest it of its malignant character. I have never lost a case of small- pox where this medicine was used thoroughly from the beginning ; and during the winter of 1849 and 1850, I treated from fifty to one hundred cases, some of which were of the most severe confluent kind. The dose is from one-fourth to one grain, to be given once in three or four hours until the proper symptoms of the medicine appear."

Black cohosh was used frequently in female disorders. Hip baths were used for many vaginal complaints as a recommendation for treatment. Those are basically sitting in a cold bath to the hips only. Hydrotherapy was adopted by eclectic physicians for many female disorders, including masturbation and hysteria. 

Interesting non-history and history cool websites related to this page

The History of Hysteria | Office for Science and Society - McGill University

Calisaya | The Straight Up (drinkstraightup.com)

Sassafras: Sweet, spicy, slimy medicine — Bevin Clare

Per Dr. King, self abuse could lead to hysteria, insanity, and even death. Masturbation was to stopped or else it could lead to any or all of those conditions. This also applied to men. Dr. Scudder, his fellow colleague at the Eclectic Medical School, described treatment for masturbation for men as well. While electic physicians discussed limiting medications that were poisons that made people vomit or laxatives and in opposition to traditional medicine training at the time with large use of calomel, otherwise known as mercury, they did not change in their thinking about sexuality or the supposed risks of masturbation that were commonly held during the gilded age. Masturbation by men or women was to be suppressed by antiaphrodiasics. I am not sure how the combination of black cohosh, yellow dock roots, a liquor from cinchona, and root beer (sassafra), would suppress anyone from masturbating, but the second prescription, nux vomica is a definitive homeopathic medicine. Nux Vomica is in super small doses or else it would kill you quickly as it contains strychnine, aka rat poison.