Medical care today is far different than 100 years ago. The new exhibit at the Beech Mountain Museum looks back in time and explores healing through the life of Dr. William Jackson Love, a much loved “saddlebag doctor,” who treated people on Beech Mountain in the early part of the 20th century. The exhibit contains many of his tools, textbooks and ledgers, which were made available by his grandsons, Doug and Jack Love.
Dr. Love’s formal medical knowledge was gained through classes at the University of Knoxville, which followed European medical traditions, but he also included the use of local herbs and plants in treating patients. Widely used books called Materia Medica combined European herbal knowledge with other traditions, such as Native American and local folk healing.
Dr. Love routinely made house calls on horseback to remote cabins. In addition to the medical tools in his saddlebag, Dr. Love carried pills, powders and tonics, including opiates, which were ordered from a pharmaceutical company in New York. However, many of the ingredients contained in these purchased medicines were frequently made using herbs, roots, bark, and flowers gathered here on Beech Mountain and throughout the Appalachians.
Also important in early medicine were midwives and herbalists. They cultivated medicinal plants in their gardens or gathered them from the woods and forests on Beech. These plants included Purple Trillium, European Foxglove, Opium Poppies, and many others. They would sell these to a middleman who supplied the pharmaceutical companies, where they were prepared into the forms sold to doctors. Dr. Love had an annually renewed license to purchase and dispense opiates, and remarkably, he also had a license to practice medicine long before such licenses were required.
The museum exhibit features these approaches to healing with detailed descriptions and displays of the herbs used a century ago, providing visitors with a hands-on understanding of their uses and significance. Because of the personal artifacts from Dr. Love’s practice on display, visitors can gain an understanding of how medicine was practiced on Beech Mountain a century ago.
The Museum is open Thursday through Sunday from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and is located at 503 Beech Mountain Parkway next to Fred’s General Mercantile. Admission is always free. For more information on the Beech Mountain History Museum, call 828-387-HIST (4478).
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