Main description:

Pioneer Doctor is the story of a half-century of medical practice, from the early days in Oklahoma Territory to metropolitan conditions. Lewis J. Moorman, M.D., once told a patient who apologized for calling him out late at night, ""You must remember, I started with a team of Indian ponies twenty miles from a railroad.""

Moorman's experiences run the gamut of human ills and situations - of childbirth in a barn loft, the ""faith healer"" who infected a whole community with an ""itch,"" the mother who was sure her child had a case of the ""go-backs."" He tells of encounters with Indians who needed medical help; the horrifying effects of gunshot and knife wounds; and the spiritual response of patients stricken with tuberculosis.

In the literature of medical practice, Dr. Moorman's association with Old Billy, his horse, approaches near-classic proportions. Obtained as payment for a long-overdue medical bill, Old Billy had a balky disposition - until the good doctor decided to talk things over with him one day. What follows offers a rare account of the relationship between a man and his horse.

Pioneer Doctor stands as an entertaining and informative memoir, but its social and cultural significance is clear. For here is apparent a tremendous transformation as countless young physicians like Moorman went out from Louisville Medical College, covering the plains with horse-and-buggy doctors.