Frontier Doctor

Book excerpt: Describes the author's thirteen-year residency in frontier Oregon, detailing a young physician's experiences in childbirthing, epidemics, fractures, unwanted pregnancies, etc. Includes accounts of his treating patients--cowboys, rustlers, ranch wives, Indians, prostitutes, homesteaders, and town boosters--offering a social history of town and ranch life on the Oregon high desert. This also documents the development of a Western boomtown: with the arrival of the railroad in 1911, the wide-open settlement known as Farewell Bend was transformed into an important center of industry, commerce, and culture.