Chapter Twenty-Three

Doctors and Hospitals

Page 406-409

In the early history of Marion County, there were few practitioners of the "healing arts" and no clinics, hospitals or nursing homes. The communities were sparsely settled; travel by horse and buggy was slow due to rough roads; there were no telephones to call the doctor if there was a doctor.

In practically every community there was someone who, though not a licensed doctor, was called upon to "tend the sick" and recommend the home remedies to be used in the treatment. There was also in most communities some woman, usually an elderly mother of several children, who acted as midwife and delivered most of the babies. Practically every family had a shelf of home remedies-quinine or chill tonic for chills; McConnon or Watkins Red Linament for aches, pains and bruises; epsom salts and castor oil for stomach complaints; worm medicine for the children; turpentine on sugar for colds and sore throats and homemade poultices-flannel or yarn cloth saturated with turpentine and kerosene and lard added to the mixture to prevent blistering when the poultice was applied to the chest for a deep chest cold or a threatening case of pneumonia; native herbs and roots were gathered and stored for their medicinal values and many families relied heavily upon these for treatment of most of their ills. Some of the more superstitious wore charms or tokens to ward off disease or accident.

Among the people who came to the area from Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Missouri, there were a few doctors with the pioneering spirit who made Marion County their new home. These pioneer doctors played an important part in the development of the county. They were influential leaders in the communities where they settled because usually they were the best educated people in the community and they were the best known and had the closest personal contacts. They were with the families at the birth of the children, during illness and death, and often were called upon to conduct the funeral service of the dead. They knew the need for better schools and often served as school directors.

These pioneer doctors were poorly paid and often paid in produce or live stock, and far too often, the charge they entered on their account book was never paid. Usually the doctors lived on a farm or were owners of some small business that supplemented their income. It was not an unusual thing for the doctor during the serious illness of a patient to spend a day and night, and sometimes longer, in the home of a patient, sleeping little, if at all, to be available in an emergency. They treated many patients knowing at the time that they would not be paid. Rarely, if ever, did they inquire prior to the treatment or even after, if the family could pay the bill. Theirs was a life of service and their charges were based upon the ability of the patient to pay rather than upon a schedule. Their standard of living was comparable to that of their patients.

Among the list of doctors given hereafter, we want to pay special tribute to some of the early doctors who played an important part in the development of Marion County. These are: Dr. Cowdry, Dr. Coker, Dr. Layton, Dr. Noe, Dr. Pierce, Dr. Ware and Dr. Wilson of Yellville; Dr. Barn, Dr. Elton, and Dr. Lay of Bruno; Dr. Jobe of Eros; Dr. Huddleston, Dr. Matthews, Dr. J. J. Morrow and Dr. Pat Keeter of Flippin; Dr. Walton and Dr. Jenkins of Oakland.

Perhaps others of those mentioned hereafter in the list of doctors deserve special recognition, but those mentioned above are those whom we can recall as pioneer "practitioners of the healing arts".

The following list of names represent the doctors and dentists that we have been able to find from records or from memory that at some time in the history of Marion County were engaged in the practice of medicine or dentistry in the county. If any name has been omitted, we offer our sincere apologies for the omission.

Doctors of Marion County

Dr. James W. Holland, dentist, Yellville
Dr. 0. M. Carter, dentist, Yellville
Dr. Austin Strode, dentist, Yellville
Dr. H. F. Palenski, dentist, Flippin

In closing, we are happy to say that Marion County now has two very fine hospitals-The Marion County Hospital at Yellville which was organized in the late 1950's and the Bull Shoals Community Hospital located in the town of Bull Shoals and built in the early 1970's. Both hospitals have modern professional and technical equipment and are staffed by capable physicians and specialists, well trained nurses, and laboratory technicians that can offer to the ill of Marion County, diagnoses, care and treatment comparable to the best that they could secure in the large cities.

Marion County now has also a County Nursing Home where the aged, the infirm and the poor can and are being cared for in decency and honor. No longer are these, when their families cannot or will not care for their own, made wards of the county and put on a "poor farm" or declared mentally incapable and sent to the State Hospital (Asylum as it was called) to spend their last days away from family, friends, and home, forgotten and lonely only hoping for that day when death would come to end their lonely existence.