Traveling Doctors.

Prior to the establishment of licensing laws and other legal regulations of medical practice, Americans tried in various ways to fill the gaps created by the absence of college-trained physicians. Especially in the West, self-styled "doctors" wandered from place to place offering cures or peddling remedies for various ailments. Some were honest people who thought themselves to be human benefactors, but many others were quacks and charlatans who worked the circuits in search of profit. White pioneers' deep fascination with Native American lore led many of them to consult so-called Indian doctors for treatment. Most white men who toted saddlebags of herb and root medicines to frontier communities claimed to have learned their knowledge from Indian healers, but most of their prescriptions included ingredients unused by most tribes: cayenne pepper, snake root, sage, skunk cabbage, and other combinations that supposedly cured croup...