Mustard Plaster Medicine
by
Mary A. Green
Dr. Wallace was often impatient, sometimes used cuss words like "damn" and stronger to make a point. While he lived, people often had much to say about his grumpy disposition. After he died, many began to remember him as a kind man, often recalling how he had saved this or that person's life when all hope had been lost. What must be pointed out today is that he usually accomplished these medical miracles in remote farm homes, where there was neither running water nor electricity, and where he was dealing with new immigrants who spoke little or no English.
Dr. Ira J. Wallace came to the prairies from Nova Scotia, arriving at Kamsack, Saskatchewan, in 1905 when the territory had just been made a province, and the town wasn't much more than a wagon trail running between two rows of frame buildings, the tallest of them two storeys high. He set up his first office in the back room of a drug store. From here using a buggy or sleigh, depending on the season, he began looking after the medical needs of a district that included not only a fast-growing railway town, but a vast farming community and an Indian reservation.
Before the era of public immunization programs, Dr. Wallace often had to deal with cases of diphtheria. The disease was treatable with injections of an anti-toxin, but when there wasn't a sufficient supply on hand, more had to be ordered from Winnipeg and sent to Kamsack by train, resulting in loss of valuable time. The diphtheria bug causes a membrane to grow over a person's own mucous membrane, thus blocking off breathing passages and suffocating its victim. In these cases, providing he'd reached them in time, Dr. Wallace is known to have saved his patients from certain death by reaching into the throat with an instrument and removing the obstruction.
Mother often told me how the doctor had performed this procedure on a relative. The tale was recounted with dramatic pauses and much emphasis on the fact that if it weren't for Dr. Wallace getting there just in time, Uncle would have died. "And now," she would conclude in a voice overcome with emotion, "look at him. Still among us and enjoying life."
Dr. Wallace was also credited with saving the life of my maternal grandfather. It happened in 1919 during the Spanish influenza epidemic. Grandpa had developed a high fever, hallucinating so badly Grandma had him moved to a remote corner of the house where his ravings wouldn't disturb the rest of the family. One day a neighbor called by to find out how the family was managing and, seeing Grandpa's condition, advised them to send for the doctor right away.
There were probably several reasons why the doctor hadn't been called earlier. It was winter time and the eight miles of country road may have been near impassable, even for the heavy work sleigh. The family may have owed the doctor money, would have been embarrassed to face him, and concerned about going further into debt.
Then, too, prevailing philosophy said you didn't send for a doctor at the first sign of illness. You waited for people to get better on their own. Many died of a burst appendix while waiting for a stomach ache to go away. So when Grandpa got the flu, they waited for him to get better. They say that when Dr. Wallace arrived, he let loose with a stream of awful cuss words. And I think that I now understand why he might have.
After examining his patient, the doctor showed Grandma how to make a mustard plaster. I don't know how they communicated because my grandmother spoke only Russian, although, after it was all over, she often quoted him in fairly precise English. With the mustard plaster on his chest, Grandpa soon fell into a deep sleep to awaken hours later, lucid at last. They say that when the plaster was removed, the top layer of his skin came away with it. But my grandfather recovered to live another 53 years.
As the town grew, other physicians opened offices in Kamsack. Dr. Wallace continued his own practice even after becoming involved in Public Health matters. During the late 1930's he and his nurse visited all the schools in the area to immunize students and pre-schoolers against diphtheria and smallpox. This involved four calls at each school, three for the diphtheria shots given at one-week intervals, and finally a scratch on the arm for the smallpox vaccination. The doctor was now getting about in his one-seater dark blue coupe. And I was in Grade One the year he began his visits to Riversdale School. I remember how scared I was of both the needle and the old man whose face seemed to be fixed in a permanent scowl. But Mother was there with my younger sisters reassuring us that the needle wasn't that bad after all because it would protect us from dreadful diseases.
A few years later, during the winter of '39-40 when I was ten, she had to nurse us through illnesses against which vaccines hadn't yet been developed. There were four of us kids at that time. I was the oldest, my sister Verna was the youngest, then a year and a few months old. It all began in the late fall when children in our school district began getting measles. I was the first to get sick, then the three younger ones all at once. It was nearly Christmas before they were better, although still sniffling and complaining of ear-aches.
Then in January came the whooping cough epidemic. I'd had this while still a toddler so stayed well and was able to keep up my role as Mother's helper when my sisters got sick. Each day as I arrived home from school, Mother greeted me in her strong authoritative voice to remind me of things I needed to do right away. Usually it was to get more wood into the house so that we could keep the kitchen stove and the heater going.
There were six of us living in a three-room house. We were five miles from town with no telephone or electricity or running water. The roads were often snowed in. Supplies, which included kerosene for the lamps, had to be brought in somehow from Kamsack, and I remember that Dad often walked into town and brought back whatever he could carry in a sack.
Whooping cough usually takes six weeks to run its course. The girls next to me in age recovered without needing a doctor. But Verna remained sickly and fretful, not interested in playing, always asking to be held and rocked. Soon she didn't even want to leave the crib.
There was already a feeling in the air that suggested winter was nearly over. The sun was warm and the snow was beginning to melt that day I came home to find the house in a state of neglect. Mother was so sorrowful and anxious sitting beside Verna's crib saying over and over, "What's the matter with her? Why is she like this?" The baby no longer reached out wanting to be picked up. She lay still, sleeping, waking up to fret for a moment, then sleeping again.
"What are we going to do?" Mother and Dad spoke in sombre tones, ignoring the rest of us.They realized now that they should have taken the child to a doctor the week before. It would have been an office visit and Dr. Wallace wouldn't have asked for money right away. They could have promised to pay him something when they sold a calf or harvested the grain in the fall. but now he'd surely want her admitted to the hospital where they'd expect a deposit, and would shortly send out a bill for the balance.
Mother was finally jolted into the reality that said money wasn't the main thing to be considered here. She bundled the child in quilts and they took her to town on the sleigh. Dr. Wallace diagnosed her condition as pneumonia. After conferring with some members of the extended family, arrangements were made for Mother and Verna to stay with an aunt who lived just outside of town along the main highway. Here the doctor could see the sick child as often as he considered necessary.
Verna responded to his care and whatever medication was available at the time. She was soon standing in the crib holding her arms out to be picked up, letting people know she wanted to get out and walk around. And just as it seemed she'd completely recovered, she had a relapse.
On his next visit, probably the same day, Dr. Wallace took another bottle of medicine out of his bag and stood it on the kitchen table. "Try this," he said in his usual curt manner. "It might help. Something new. It's called sulpha." It must have helped because in a few days Mother and Verna were home again. Mother took charge of things and our household returned to normal.
Verna and I have been siblings together in the same city since I moved to Winnipeg in 1965. We now have apartments in the same seniors block. It's good to have a sister under the same roof again. Each of us in our own space, but with connections to a shared past. When we get together we often talk about life on the old farm in Saskatchewan.
One day when we were visiting this way, I told her about the dreadful winter when Mother nursed us through measles and whooping cough. And I told her about how she got pneumonia and how Dr. Wallace saved her life.
It was after this conversation with Verna that I began thinking about Dr. Wallace after all these years, remembering the man and appreciating what he had done for our family. In the process I began to understand what caused his grumpiness and cussing. He died in 1944 at the age of 80, still caring for sick people even after his own health had begun to fail. Now I, too, have come to realize that yes, he must have been a kind man.
End Note
Coincidentally, 1944 was also the year that Tommy Douglas, who was to become known as the father of Canada's Medicare system, was elected Premier of Saskatchewan.
