Museum After Hours: Do No Harm

Imagine spending two and a half years in an unknown wilderness with no access to health care or a physician. You face daily challenges from bears, snakes, broiling sunlight, immobilizing cold, swift rivers, steep mountains, stomach bending food or no food at all, muscle stretching marches and rump bumping horse rides. How do you treat the blisters, bites, stomach upsets, wounds, and cramps? This program will provide the answers as to how it was done in the early part of the 19th century. Gary Lentz, portraying Sgt. Patrick Gass of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, recollects the instructions given by Dr. Benjamin Rush for the health of the military as well as providing a brief overview of the medical theory of the period. An extensive list of the ailments treated by Captains Lewis & Clark is reviewed and discussed from the point of view of a member of the Expedition. Two medical chests with the medicines, tools, bandages and accessories needed for treating the members of the Expedition and the local folks encountered along the way are displayed. Finally, a simulated bleeding of a ‘volunteer’ is demonstrated. Gary was a member of the Washington State Governor’s Lewis & Clark Trail Committee for over 25 years. He was President of the Washington State Chapter of the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation during the Bicentennial. As a Washington State Park Ranger for 35 years, he has had many opportunities to discuss the Expedition with writers, historians, and interested visitors. He has written an article for WE PROCEEDED ON magazine about the medicine chests and medicines used on the Expedition.