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Article: Medicine and Surgery
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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MEDICINE AND SURGERY
MEDICINE AND SURGERY The Colonial Period
The people who settled the New World were often seeking something that had eluded them in the Old World; thus few established practitioners of medicine were among the early settlers. The exceptions were the apprentice-trained midwives who were members of the religious minorities who came to America and the "surgeons" who accompanied the gentlemen adventurers of early Virginia. Surgeons in the early modern era were, in general, apprentice-trained practitioners without university education who used external treatment
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baths, massage, and external ointments and salves
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as well as the knife. However, many "surgeons" ...