Cures and Care in Niagara County, New York

Cures and Care in Niagara County, New York is a series of articles published in the Lockport Union Sun & Journal in Lockport, New York from 2016-2017 with a focus on local history, early medicine, alternative medicine, social service programs and care in a rural NY state county.

These ventures were often based upon an alternative view of health care that differed from the traditional care that was available during 1830 - 1930. In the same period, health products ranging from medicinal mineral waters, patent medicines, food products, and devices were used in Lockport, NY as an alternative to traditional medicine.

This was in contrast to the medicine practiced at the time, which was largely guesswork and often employed dangerous procedures and risky surgery. In the 1800s and into the early 1900s, medicine was primitive. Physicians often were untrained, and licensing was not yet organized. Bleeding, mercury, and surgeries were the primary methods of treatment. Many died because of this care, and people had little confidence in doctors. Established treatments for people with disabilities were crude and seldom effective, so the sanitariums and alternative methods and products were also used to treat diseases of the nervous system and physical and mental disabilities.

To prevent them from slipping into the void of abandoned history, this book uncovers the early treatments, the visible and lesser known - that provided some of the earliest care and help for the old, sick, disabled, insane and destitute.