Learn about ’18th-Century Rural Vermont Healers’ July 21

As towns like Cavendish began to be settled in the 18th century, physicians were generally not among the first inhabitants. The first doctor did not arrive in Cavendish until 26 years after the town was chartered. Who was responsible for the health-care needs of the newly forming communities and how did they practice?

The Cavendish Historical Society will host a presentation entitled 18th-Century Rural Vermont Healers at 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 21 at the CHS Museum, 1858 Main St.

Topics will include the history of 18th-century healers, treatments and how plants and herbs were used then and now. The program will conclude with a brief medicinal plant walk around the museum. This event is free and open to the public.

Although women served as doctor, nurse, midwife, pharmacist and therapist, ministers were also crossed trained and referred to as “minister/physician.” The medicinal and kitchen gardens that women maintained and used in the care of their families were one and the same; they used “recipes” handed down within families and among friends.

One speaker will be Dr. Charis Boke, a member of the Anthropology Department at Dartmouth College. She is currently writing her first book, Poison, Power, and Possibility: Building Relations with Medicinal Plants. It explores the poetics, politics and practices of contemporary herbalists in North America, leaning on ethnographic research, botanical histories and lived experience to examine what it takes to remedy what ails us. Boke was involved in helping with the Benjamin Rush Medicinal Garden at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.

For more information, call 802-226-7807 or send an e-mail.