Children's Health - as published in " Come to Woodstock" Oct. issue

Every parent silently shares the universal fear that a life threatening illness may affect their child. Most parents of today would be able to make a doctor visit the help with the diagnosis and recommend the treatments. Dr Norman Burg and Dr Kenneth Bremer were on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week when I was growing up. Their offices were in town and they both were involved in community activities like little league, they were an active part of the community.
Born in August of 1861, Wilber Milton Howland developed scarlet fever during the winter of 1864. His mother, Helen Ophelia Wilber- Howland did her best to ease her little boys’ discomfort. Being a family who were well versed in natural treatments for illness, Wilber’s father Egbert hiked from their home nestled in the Mink Hollow up onto Olderbark Mountain in search of slippery elm bark to help treat his little sons fever. Wet and wear y from his hike, he returned home to find out that their child had died in his absence.
Little Rachel Mower was born in 1880 at her parents homestead out on the Woodstock Saugerties Road. Her death at the tender age of a year and a half is recorded in the Christ’s Lutheran Church records, with the cause of death given as teething. AS it turns out, teething was a common cause of death for toddlers during the 19th century. When the children began to teethe, mothers would begin the process of weaning them off the breast. If the food sources were contaminated, fragile little children might succumb to any number of food borne illnesses. What parent hasn’t experienced the frustration of trying to find the proper way to sooth a teething baby? AT one time, when faced with a distressed infant who has swollen gums, it was a common practice to cut the gums open with a lance. This was believed to help the child’s teeth break through. As with any surgical procedure in the nineteenth century, the risk of infection was extremely high.
Janine Fallon- Mower , local history author. Her latest book, “American Tapestry the Mower’s of Maple Lane” is available thru the author. woodstockfleamarket@hvc.rr.com