Lassiter discovers Osteopathy

Lassiter, after successfully finishing some business in the Northern Dakota Territory, was heading back home to the dusty, dirty, forgotten town of......Forgotten when he stopped to replenish supplies in the small back woods Northeastern Missouri hicktown of Kirksville. As he rode down main street, he noticed a store front with a shingle hanging that read, Andrew Taylor Still, M.D., Osteopath. Having been born in a field when his mama squatted too deep while picking cotton in the hot sun back in Richmond, Virginia, Lassiter had never seen a doctor. Most people only went to frontier doctors when they were dying and the doctor usually sped up the process with unproven treatment and quackery. Even though he felt well, Lassiter thought it might be a good idea to have a physical exam, never dreaming he would spur a national movement of preventive health maintenance and plant the seed for what later would become known as executive health physicals, i.e. costly unnecessary physical examinations and testing of privileged white overfed American males with lots of money. You know the kind, the worried well. Lassiter dismounted and tied Blaze to the hitching post and walked in to the Doctor's office. A.T. Still was just finishing amputating the second arm at the shoulder of Billy, an unfortunate sod buster who stuck both of his arms into a jammed thrasher. He managed to unjam the thrasher but mangled both of his arms in the process. Doc looked up at Lassiter and said, "Make yourself comfortable, this will take but a minute and I'll be right with you." In those days the sign of a good surgeon was one who could amputate an extremity in less than a minute and Doc was a good surgeon having learned his trade as a Civil War Field Hospital Steward where he lopped off more gangrenous arms and legs than he could count. With the last swipe of the saw, Doc said, "there" as the arm fell to the blood soaked wooden floor on top of the other arm. He glanced at Andy, his young French Canadian apprentice and said, "tie off the artery and vein and bandage the stump." He then rinsed his bare hands in a bloody bucket of salt water and wiped them dry on his blood reddened surgical apron as he walked over to Lassiter to shake his hand. To be continued......Slainte , Tommy Maaltman. [Note: This is the first episode of Tommy Maaltman's Wild, Wild West written in Ye Olde Knife in the Kidney Tavern.]