Bite the Bullet: Medicine in the 18th Century Lecture ​

“Bite the Bullet,” Washington’s Headquarters’ Program on Revolutionary era medicine, is designed to acquaint audiences with the state of medical knowledge and some of the practices of medicine in the time of George Washington. Physicians were frequently confounded by the causes of illness, treated symptoms, and relied heavily on the healing powers of nature. Many remedies stocked by apothecaries were herbal in nature, and the best doctors of the time still healed with herbs. In 1775, the US had 3,500 doctors, but only 300 had medical degrees. The profession of physician / surgeon was open only to men, but the system relied heavily on women who could be and were midwives. The lecture quotes from the diary of traveling midwife, Martha Ballard, of northern Massachusetts who kept a record of her work as a healer and a midwife, which provides an unparalleled window into practical medicine in the quarter century straddling 1800.

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Speaker Bio: Matthew Weigman has been a Hudson Valley resident going back to 1962 and has had an interest in American history since the age of 16. His 32-year-career in communications at the auction house Sotheby’s concluded with nine years as Worldwide Director of Sales Communications, based in London. As a historical interpreter at Washington’s Headquarters Newburgh for the past four years he has enjoyed illuminating visitors and audiences about significant achievements of the “indispensable man” of the American Revolution during its final 16 months, as well as lecturing about the era of the Revolution itself. To satisfy an interest in horticulture Matthew volunteers as a Master Gardener with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Putnam County, writes regularly for the Garden Club of America magazine Bulletin and lectures in historical horticulture.