During the second session of the first Parliament of Upper Canada the Legislature passed an Act to regulate the laying-out, amending, and keeping in repair the public highways and roads of the province. Under its provisions the whole matter was left in the hands of the Justices of the Peace, who were declared to be commissioners of highways to lay out and regulate the roads within their respective divisions. They were also given power, upon the sworn certificate of a majority of twelve of the principal freeholders of the district, summoned for the purpose by them, to alter any road already laid out or to construct new ones. We can readily imagine how many of the crooks and turns in our roads were thus introduced in the first instance to serve the temporary purpose of some friend of the commissioners, or to satisfy the whim of some influential land owner.
By the same Act was introduced a form of statute labour, which has deservedly met with little favour and much condemnation; but has undergone little change for the better from 1793 to the present time. Men possessing little or no qualifications for the position are appointed pathmasters to act as foremen over their friends and neighbours. Annually they turn out in full force, do a good deal of visiting and some work, and frequently leave the road they were supposed to repair in a worse condition than they found it.
To overcome the accumulation of snow in the roads a very simple remedy was provided as follows: "In case any highways are obstructed by snow at any time the overseers are hereby ordered to direct as many of the householders on the road as may be necessary to drive through the highway." So long as the present system of statute labour remains in force and gangs of unskilled workmen persist in annoying the travelling public by rendering the highways practically impassable, this section might, with appropriate modifications, be re-enacted to-day.
CHAPTER VII
DOCTORS, DOMESTIC REMEDIES, AND FUNERALS
Our forefathers were subject to the same physical ailments as ourselves, but they do not appear to have suffered to the same extent from disease as we do in our day. The surgeon was rarely called upon to exercise his calling, and then only when amputations were felt to be necessary, or some mutilated member needed mending. Fashionable operations were unknown. The vicious tendencies of the bacteria in the human body were not then discovered, or, if they had, war had not yet been declared upon them. Men went about their daily occupations, too busy to bother with the microbes that the modern scientists tell us are gnawing at our vitals. Their greatest fear was from epidemics like smallpox, which occasionally swept through a neighbourhood, leaving a trail of sorrow in its wake. Of licensed practitioners there were but few; and they were, for the most part, attached to the military posts. Occasionally, if the roads were passable, and they felt in the humour and saw a prospective fee of respectable proportions, they might be induced to visit a patient in the neighbouring townships. In this, as in all other matters, the settlers did their best to serve themselves.
In no community of this or any other age have there ever been lacking the services of skilled specialists in any line very long, before some unqualified individual volunteered to supply the lack. It was not long before the quack doctor with his vile decoctions appeared among the pioneers. Strenuous efforts were made to legislate him out of existence, but he managed to evade the statutory prohibitions and has even survived to the present day.
During the first few decades of the Loyalist settlements it was not so much a question of whether the quack could practise in the townships,[#] but the question more to the point was whether the educated and skilled physician would practise. The settlers had become so expert in treating most of their complaints, that they rarely deemed it necessary to secure the services of the medical practitioner; and, when the real physician did take up his abode among them, he not uncommonly engaged in some other calling as well and practised his profession as a side-line.
[#] The first statute providing for the licensing of practitioners in physics and surgery throughout the province was passed in 1795. Up to that time the quacks had it pretty much their own way. The Act was found unworkable and was repealed in 1806; a new and more effective Act was passed in 1815.
The mother or grandmother, as a rule, was the doctor, nurse, and apothecary for the whole family. In the month of September, or perhaps October, when the phase of the moon was supposed to be favourable for the purpose, she organized an expedition to the woods in search of a supply of herbs to replenish her medicine chest. In some cases she dug in the ground for roots, in others the bark, leaves, or stems were sought, and in others still the fruit or seeds possessed the necessary medicinal properties. When she had gathered in her stores, she tied them up in bundles and hung them up in the attic, or stowed them away in some convenient nook until required. Her collection contained specifics for nearly every ache and pain.