It Could Go Either Way

The merchant of the 1840 daybook occasionally sold medicine along with the various household goods, hardware and tools, farming implements, cloth and clothing, and footwear he carried. But in the autumn of 1843 he seems to have sold little else besides medicine.

Note the entry for September 24, 1843, where Nicholas Nichols buys medicine … and writes his will.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.


If the "ague pills" he bought contained quinine, they might actually do some good. The "cathartic pills" — if Nicholas intended to use them to treat fever — were part of the accepted medical standard at the time, and worse than useless. However, from the next page, we see that Nicholas survived at least until November 12, when he bought more ague pills.

Just below that second entry, we find Eli Sigler coming in for other examples of the era's standard medical practice: bleeding and blistering.[1]

I found a rather interesting blog post about such treatments here.

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Since I haven't been able to find Nicholas Nichols (or Nickels) at all in the census records, I don't know how long he survived beyond 1843.

Eli Sigler was the son of Samuel (Sr.) and Ann Sigler. He survived his bleeding and blistering to reach a ripe old age, and now lies in Hebron Cemetery.


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[1] Long ago I posted a story showing that even in 1904 folk medicine still used a cousin of blistering: namely, the counterirritant of a mustard poultice.