Iowa County WI Archives History .....Cure For Cholera By The Tyrer Fammily 1850s
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Nancy Poquette npoq@hotmail.com December 31, 2006, 5:11 am

There is a memoir in the possession of the Wisconsin State Historical Society 
which was written by James Roberts, in the collection donated by Eleanor 
Sanford, file MAD 4/14/SC 326, which contains the following information 
concerning George’s father, Asa Tyrer:

	“…During the weeks that followed, my father and brother-in-law were 
attended by no regular physician [for cholera], but were waited on by “Old Man 
Tyrer” as he was called, who lived about a mile west of the present NW Depot. 
He had remarkable success with the cases he treated. I think it was said that 
all those he treated recovered. He waited on my father and Matthew Rogers and 
both recovered. His treatment was medicated steam inhaled through the nose. 
Soon after, those [who] had gone away returned, when the plague ceased.”

	Elva Power Fieldhouse, of Elkton MD, gives the Tyrer family recipe for 
this medicated steam in the following article “Thomas Bolton Shaunce and the 
Helena Shot Tower on the Wisconsin River”. Don Fieldhouse submitted it for 
publication to the Iowa County Historical Society Newsletter for 
publication. “In 1850-1851 when the cholera was so serious, Thomas Shaunce went 
with his father-in-law and mother-in-law (Asa and Chloe Tyrer) and helped 
people wherever people had the disease. They tried to comfort the living and 
helped lay out the dead. They often prepared food for those too frightened to 
think of food. Asa Tyrer and Chloe had a prescription for steaming and 
hydrating the victims, which did not fail if they arrived in time. This often 
involved steaming and using wet sheets for the hydration.

	“Steam Medicine (as written by Chloe Tyrer especially for her 
descendants): To one-quart whiskey, drown ten or twelve live coals of fire in 
it, then strain it. Add three tablespoonfulls of salt-petre and three of 
sulphur. Directions: This steam is preferable over the cold cholera medicine, 
and preferable to whiskey, but for the inflamitory you should use whiskey and 
set it afire and let it burn as long as it will burn. Chloe was very opposed to 
whiskey, but for medical purposes, it was accepted.” While Chloe was home 
fighting the cholera, her son George Tyrer was traveling in a wagon train in 
the California Gold Rush. At least one other of her sons, William Tyrer, was 
already there, and of her nephews, Hiram Tyrer, and possibly Elisha. It had to 
be a time of great anxiety for her, and it is likely that she prepared her boys 
with her cholera recipe for their trek across the continent.

	Fellow descendant, David Jones of Illinois, from the William and Louisa 
Tyrer branch, has provided this researcher with a plausible explanation for the 
success of the remedy:

	“The cholera formula has some scientific basis, in fact. Current 
treatment consists of giving salts orally to replace electrolytes. The salts 
stop the cholera in a matter of minutes. Soaking charcoal from a fire in 
whiskey would have the effect of leaching potassium salts from the burned wood 
into the whiskey. Adding saltpeter to the solution would raise the potassium 
content to give a solution near to what is used today.”

	“The addition of sulfur is to be expected. Sulfur was used extensively 
from the colonial times onward as a treatment for everything. It was a good 
universal drug.”

The Tyrers were also mentioned in the History of Iowa County, Wisconsin, 
1881: “Among the physicians who remained were Dr. Silbey and Dr. Burrall. A man 
named Tyre, a farmer in the vicinity, was very successful in treating the 
disease; he has a method of steaming which proved very efficacious. The first 
symptoms of the disease was an acute diarrhea, followed by cramps and vomiting, 
the patient dying with great suffering in a few hours after the first attack.”

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