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""Im Winter ruht der Wagen, in Sommer der Schlitten, aber nie ruht das Pferd."" (""The wagon rests in winter, the sleigh in summer, but the horse, never."") This old German proverb brings home the importance of the horse to the farmer in pre-industrial America. For these hard-pressed tillers of the soil in rural Pennsylvania, a horse was a prized possession; it provided transportation, motive power, companionship, and fertilizer. Few crises on a farm were more worrisome than an ailing horse. Just as every household had a ""domestic physician"" book packed with home remedies for human diseases, so most farmers owned a ""Pferdartz"" (horse doctor book) to care for their animals. These folk medical cures involved herbs, minerals, poultices, bleeding techniques, and even mystical incantations. Some were bizarre in the extreme. How to treat a mad dog bite? Press the bloody carcass of a freshly killed pigeon into the bite to absorb the poison. How to kill bot flies? Wash the horse with a suspension of gun powder and pepper in a mixture of rum and urine. In The Nineteenth Century Horse Doctor, Heindel and Rapp, two Pennsylvania German researchers in drug development and medical botany, translate and analyze over 100 veterinary recipes in a number of popular early 19th century Pferdartz from the Moravian and the Pennsylvania Dutch traditions.

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9781603811217

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Ned D. Heindel's ancestors were Pennsylvania German farmers and cigar makers in York County, Pennsylvania. His Pennsylvania German-speaking grandmother knew many of the old country remedies, the curative chants, and the pow-wow therapies and was especially good at curing childhood hiccups. Ned took his B.S. in Chemistry at Lebanon Valley College (Annville, PA), his doctorate at University of Delaware (Newark, DE), and his postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University (Princeton, NJ). His research interests are in medicinal chemistry and folk-healing techniques. He is the author of the book, Hexenkopf: History, Healing and Hexerei, and of over 200 technical articles on drug development. He is currently the Howard S. Bunn Chair Professor of Chemistry at Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) where he has taught since 1966. Robert D. Rapp was born to a Pennsylvania German family in 1930. He spent his childhood in a rural Pennsylvania German community near Reading, PA. There, at an early age, he became acquainted with the local German dialect, because his neighbors were Pennsylvania German farmers and craftsmen. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, he matriculated at Tufts University (Medford, MA) and obtained a B.S. in Chemistry in 1955. Bob worked as a chemist in industry and as a clinical chemist in the Reading Hospital before entering graduate school at Lehigh University where he was awarded a PhD in 1967. He then served as Professor of Chemistry at Albright College (Reading, PA) until his retirement in 1992. His research interests are in natural products and in medicinal chemistry. He is currently a Visiting Scientist at Lehigh University.

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