Lotions, potions, and deadly elixirs : frontier medicine in the American West / Wayne Bethard.

"A Roberts Rinehart book."

Originally published: Lanham, MD : Taylor Trade, 2004.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Frontier Dosage Forms -- Treatments: The Good, the Sad and the Ungodly -- Frontier and Pioneer Drugs: A Folk Materia Medica -- Frontier Medicate Dates and Other "Worthy of Note" Facts -- Old and Near-Forgotten Medical Terms.

Powder papers, booty balls, and sugar tits- Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs has a cure for whatever ails! These quaint names were given to popular medicinal forms during America's frontier era that were said to cure everything from fallen arches to a broken windmill. Grandmas, mommas, and even certified physicians treated the sick, lame, and unlucky with what was available: barbed wire and horseshoe nails, cactus, pokeweed, buckeyes, you name it. Ironically, a lot of these homespun treatments actually worked. In Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs, a practicing pharmacist takes a light-hearted look at the most popular medicines from the frontier days and how they were intended to work. -- Provided by publisher.

Gives an account of early-day medicines and medical practitioners during the past two to three centuries in America.