All in all, 34 women practiced medicine during those first 50 years in the Beehive State, according to Ms. Waters.  They provided an alternative to male doctors, and improved the health of the Utah communities in which they worked.  They took Zion a long way down the road toward professionalism and away from unscientific folk remedies such as mashed snails.

It is important, however, not to downplay the role that the folk remedies and home medicine played in Utah’s past.  Home health manuals also were available to the pioneers and were extremely popular.

When it came to actual medicinal compounds, some settlers had traveled across the plains with well-stocked personal pharmacies, and possessed the basic knowledge for mixing compounds.  As early as 1859, according to Ms. Florance, druggists and chemists had moved into the territory and were advertising their wares; medicines also were available through catalogs from the East.  Almost every pioneer garden had a section planted with herbs.  And then there were the cures learned from Native Americans, treatments which often involved plants, roots or strange and exotic potions and poultices.