Early American healers were a diverse group. With no rigid academic structure in place and, for the most part, unregulated license to practice, men and women desirous of tending to the ills of society – whether honorable intentions or not – came from all walks of life and educational background. Take the case of the colonial Quaker Margaret Hill Morris. On June 14, 1777 in her personal journal, Margaret Morris wrote on that day, gunboats of the Patriots cruising the Delaware River mistakenly fired on Margaret Morris’ home of Burlington. Nevertheless, later that day, she heard that some of the sailors and their wives were ill. “Some of the gondola men and their wives being sick, and no doctor in town to apply to, they were told that Mrs. M. was a skillful woman, and kept medicines to give to the poor; and notwithstanding their late attempts to shoot my poor boy, they ventured to come to me, and, in a very humble manner, begged me to come and do something for them . . . So I went to see them; there were several, both men and women, very ill with a fever — some said the camp, or putrid fever . . . I treated them according to art, and they all got well.”[1]
Margaret Morris was born Margaret Hill in 1737 and was raised by her sister Hannah and her husband, the colonial physician Samuel Preston Moore in Philadelphia. It was in this setting that Margaret probably learned about pharmaceuticals and other healing remedies (as well as through the informal network of women who exchanged studies in natural philosophy – the basic tenets of illness and therapeutics). Her brother-in-law physician also apparently showed her great latitude in transferring his expertise on healing practices.
The state of medical practice in the British colonies of North America was fragmented – even chaotic – at best. One New York critic commented just before the Revolution:
Few physicians among us are eminent for their skill. Quacks abound like locusts in Egypt . . . This is the less to be wondered at, as the profession is under no kind of regulation . . . Any man at his pleasure sets up for physician, apothecary, and chirurgeon. No candidates are either examined or licensed, or even sworn to fair practice.[2]
Any number of individuals chimed in with their “expertise” in healing – even clergymen. Margaret Morris was apparently the first “woman physician” in Burlington, New Jersey, a Quaker settlement on the banks of the Delaware River established in 1678. That there was little distinction between healing occupations – physician, nurse, and apothecary – was in sharp contrast to the regimented healing specialties of today. Healing in eighteenth century America was a fluid process depending on need and location. Many women had informal familiarity with diseases and disorders that, very often, required the most home spun of remedies: salves, herbs, and purgatives learned from the occasional passing physician or neighbors or even Native Americans. In 1758 she married the prominent Quaker William Morris who suddenly died in 1766.
Eventually Margaret, with the death of her husband, relied on her healing knowledge as an economic asset in the unregulated medical market of her time. The Delaware Valley had been hit hard by the Revolution, crippling an already struggling marketplace. She began exchanging her health expertise for cash, credit, or bartered goods, especially during the Revolutionary War, when sicknesses and injuries were numerous and few recognized physicians were available. Of course, her marketability depended heavily on her therapeutic successes as passed by her community’s word of mouth. This was especially poignant during Revolutionary times as imported medicines dwindled and expensive physician services lapsed. Local healing practices and herbal therapy took center stage. And no longer were her services given gratis. Her dire widowed existence now depended heavily on her ability to exchange medical knowledge for hard cash. In her role as healer, she diagnosed medical conditions and prescribed pharmaceuticals or lifestyle changes. But her role blurred with that of good nursing care, providing encouragement, assistance, and gentle platitudes that, she thought, aided in recovery or, in some cases, eased the journey to the grave.[3]
As for the war, wounded and sick soldiers sought comfort where they could, often collecting in empty shelters or private homes – whoever would take them in. There was virtually no organized medical care afforded them; no hospitals and few physicians or surgeons. “A number of sick and wounded brought into town”, Margaret wrote on January 4, 1777, and the situation called upon her “to extend a hand of charity towards them.” She went on to be saddened by the youthfulness of her charges and wrote that “I sympathized with their mothers, when I saw them preparing to return to the army.” Not always was she so mercenary in her trading medicines for money. Treating of the wounded – regardless of patriot or Tory – she often did without expectation of reward. On one occasion when her patients hurriedly departed without bidding her farewell she said, “I did not resent it, remembering that only one of the ten lepers, cleansed by our Lord, returned to give thanks.”[4] Like many men and women of caring, she delivered the comfort, compassion, and laudanums so needed by suffering human beings.
[1] Margaret Hill Morris, Private Journal Kept During a Portion of the Revolutionary War (New York: Privately Printed, 1865), 30-31
[2] Richard H. Shryock “Eighteenth Century Medicine in America” American Antiquarian Society (1949): 275-292
[3] Susan Brandt “’Getting into a Little Business’: Margaret Hill Morris and Women’s Medical Entrepreneurship during the American Revolution” Early American Studies 13 (2015): 774-807
[4] Morris, Private Journal, 23-24