Doctor's Office and Drug Store
Opening Day - May 17, 2011
Curator's Remarks by Ruth Bitner
Today we often take the availability of medical care for granted. But when
Saskatchewan became a province in 1905, doctors, drug stores and hospitals
and were few and far between.
Saskatchewan grew quickly between 1905 and 1925 - from 195,000 to 828,000
people in just 20 years. The number of towns and villages ballooned from 79
in 1905 to 448 in 1925. Tens of thousands lived on farms.
Our village at the WDM in North Battleford represents Saskatchewan in the
1920s. By this time towns and villages offered more services, more people
had telephones and many had cars. But diseases like tuberculosis were
common, as were communicable illnesses like diphtheria, whooping cough and
scarlet fever.
Today is a big day as we welcome a new doctor and a new druggist to town.
Our doctor will not spend every day in the office; he will be called out to
accidents and illnesses and to deliver babies out in the country. I recently
read about one doctor who made 426 calls in the country in a single year. A
few years ago, our doctor travelled by horse and buggy in summer or by horse
and sleigh in winter; but by now, in the mid 1920s, he has a car, at least
for summer calls. If his patient is short of cash, he might be paid with
eggs, a chicken or two, or a roast of beef. But maybe our doctor is one of
the Saskatchewan’s new municipal doctors. Let me explain.
In 1915, the small town of Holdfast, near Last Mountain Lake, was in danger
of losing its doctor after a year of bad crops. People were too poor to pay
for medical services so the rural municipality decided to pay Dr Schmitt a
retainer of $1500 to convince him to stay. This was the first time in North
America that tax dollars were used to pay a doctor. The idea caught on and
by 1927 there were 13 municipal doctors in towns like Beechy, Chamberlain
and Senlac. In the 1930s, when times were tough, there were even more
municipal doctors who had a guaranteed annual salary.
Our doctor has set up shop with the new druggist in town.
The opening of a drug store was welcome in small communities where people
often had only home remedies to treat wounds or illnesses. The drug store in
the 1920s was a place of wonder. There were lotions and potions and patent
medicines meant to cure everything from catarrh to cramps. Many of the
patent medicines, Lydia Pinkham’s for one, contained a liberal portion of
alcohol. And during Prohibition when bars were closed, the druggist could
legally sell liquor for medicinal purposes only.
Prescriptions back then were different, often requiring the druggist to mix
a potpourri of ingredients to make an ointment, an elixir or a liniment. Our
druggist uses a mortar and pestle to blend substances together. Today’s
pharmacists aren’t called upon to do this very often.
The drug store usually offered other things people needed: stationery,
photographic supplies, veterinary medicine, candy, shaving gear and
cosmetics, maybe even sheet music and phonograph records. Sometimes it
rivalled the general store for the variety of merchandise it offered. Since
our druggist is new in town, he is just getting his business established and
doesn’t have a lot of stock. Maybe he’ll add more as his business becomes
more established. Merchants in the 1920s displayed their wares behind the
counter or in glass cases. Customers did not help themselves as they do
today - that was the job of the clerk or owner.
We invite you to step back into the 1920s, to imagine what it was like to
finally have a doctor and druggist set up shop in town. Please help us to
welcome them.
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