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Hermann B. Scharfmann (1838-ND) http://tinyurl.com/Scharfmann

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Doctors

From Overland Journey to California, 1918.

Reader: Kevin Hearle

Even the lucky miners who struck it rich in California gold mines had to endure unhealthy conditions. But it was especially tough when they fell ill and doctors proved either incompetent or unscrupulous.

Hermann B. Scharfmann left Germany for the California gold mines in 1849. His memoir—published in 1908 as Sandreise nach Californien—documents the harsh conditions he endured in California, including a bout with scurvy.

. . . my scurvy was of a . . . malignant kind and necessitated a doctor's attendance. Three of them did not seem to understand enough about medicine to give a cat an enema, much less to treat a human being. However, they knew how to get at my purse.

A Dutch doctor practiced in the mountains, five miles away. I sent for him and the old man had much trouble to reach my camp on the mountain top. I asked him whether he would help me and he answered that if he did not cure me he did not wish any pay, but he also told me in advance that a successful cure would cost me seventy-five dollars. He remained with me one night and within fifteen hours I could walk again.

Hermann Scharfmann's story was translated into English in 1918 as Scharfmann's Overland Journey to California.