If your impulse is to think that in rough, tough, pioneer New Mexico medical care was probably pretty primitive, too, maybe you should think again. In fact, the evidence seems to indicate that medical practice here in New Mexico Territory a century and more ago was surprisingly good, and in several areas pioneer New Mexico’s physicians and surgeons took a back seat to none. Is it possible that doctors in sophisticated medical centers like Philadelphia, Chicago, or St. Louis counseled many of their patients to head for provincial New Mexico for the very best in medical care? Indeed it is.
Probably no more than 100 physicians practiced in the New Mexico Territory in 1886 when settlers poured into the Territory, riding the early trains, eager to capitalize on the mines and other opportunities the frontier provided. By 1906 the number of physicians had doubled; by 1912 it had doubled again. This last surge involved doctors who, like their patients, came to the high, dry climate of New Mexico to seek a cure for pulmonary tuberculosis (TB).
One of our local pioneer doctors was Dr. Earl L. Woods, who came to Silver City with his wife Mary in 1901 after practicing medicine in New York City, Kansas, and Colorado. In 1913, the couple moved to Lincoln, NM. Like the typical country doctor of his day, Dr. Woods was called upon to deliver babies, set broken bones, extract teeth, and fit eyeglasses. House calls requiring long trips over primitive roads in the thinly populated mountainous country were a regular part of the practice for this man already over the age of seventy. The charge for a house call was $2.50 plus mileage.
As busy as country doctors no doubt were, Dr. Woods found time to run a drug store, start a winery during prohibition (which caused his brief arrest), raise chickens (as many as 500 at a time), and develop his own brand of deodorant soap: “Dr. Woods Nonscents to dissipate all body odors”. Dr. Woods continued his medical practice until his health began to fail; after his death he was buried in the cemetery east of Lincoln. His home in Lincoln is now open as a museum where his examining table, medical library, instruments, medicines, and medical bags all provide an intimate glimpse into the life of a pioneer doctor just after the turn of the century.
In his presentation at Lincoln Historic Site, recently retired UNM history professor Jake Spidle shares some of his thirty-year-plus study of New Mexico’s pioneer physicians. He draws some surprising conclusions about who they were; why they came to this distant place; the caliber of their medical knowledge and skills; and their service in this frontier setting. His overview of "Lions in the Desert: Pioneer Physicians in New Mexico" adds a different perspective to our understanding of New Mexico society a hundred years and more ago.
Dr. Spidle earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University and has extensively researched the history of modern medicine and the history of medicine in the Southwest. Recently retired from the University of New Mexico Department of History, he was involved in the UNM Medical Center Library Oral History of Medicine Project, which is an extensive archival and oral history program supported by UNM since 1982. Dr. Spidle interviewed over 100 physicians for this project and these interviews formed the basis of his book, Doctors of Medicine in New Mexico: a History of Health and Medical Practice 1886-1986 (1986, University of New Mexico Press).
