If you walk by an Ozark church some Sunday morning, you might hear the congregation singing out the old hymn, “Give Me that Old-Time Religion,” but rarely do you hear the same enthusiasm from people for that “old-time medicine.”
I guess with modern cures we no longer require the services of such items as the Ozark Madstone. The madstone was the backwoods cure for rabies and other poisonous bites. When the porous stone was stuck to the afflicted area after being soaked in warm milk, it was supposed to suck the disease or poison out.
Lore says that the original madstones came from the gall bladders of albino deer. They become family heirlooms handed down from one generation to the next, but always lent out to neighbors and those in need.
In the early 1900s, the Carneys living near Flat Creek in Barry County began marketing a reproduction of the madstone made from local stone. An advertisement in 1909 claimed “The Carney Madstone or Poison Extractor” will cure hydrophobia, snake bite, ivy poisoning, wounds caused by rusty nails and blood poisoning caused by handling diseased animals and only cost you $10.
That would be close to $300 in 2023 inflation adjusted value, or about the copay for a trip to the emergency room. Considering the madstone could be used multiple times, this seems like a bargain.
Another Barry County health enterprise of the early 1900s was the Radium Springs bottling plant located between Seligman and Roaring River. According to a 1914 Cassville newspaper, parties owning the spring property stated, “the water from Radium Spring has been carefully analyzed, and pronounced to contain medical properties
of rare value.”
I’m not sure what “medical properties of rare value” are, but I trust the 1914 analysis about as much as I would trust Theranos now. Dubious medical testing seems to be a problem yet to be solved. In a 1924 ad in the Joplin Globe, Radium Springs Corporation manager W.H. Cloe claimed, “We have shipped ‘Ponce De Leon’ water from Radium Springs, Barry County, Mo., to three different epileptics, neither of whom has ever had a convulsion, or fit, since beginning to drink the water.”
The price for the wonder water was only $2.50 for 5 gallons (or about $44 in 2023 terms), with a full refund to those not satisfied with results. The bottled water concept must have been ahead of its time, as the company ceased operation by the start of the depression and the health resort planned around the spring never came to fruition. But, with the current bombardment of health drinks and vitamin waters in convenient stores, you have to admit, the concept was sound.
People of that time must have preferred soaking in mineral water rather than drinking it. Mineral Springs in Barry County was for a little while a popular local destination for health seekers.
First known as Panacea in 1879, Mineral Springs was visited by travelers who took the Frisco to Exeter, then traveled by horse the remainder of the way, with the railroad from Exeter to Cassville not being constructed until 1896. Cassville Druggist M.C Messer ran a hack line from Exeter to Mineral Springs, charging $1.50 for a roundtrip.
Mineral Springs had a few hotels and a bathhouse, referring to itself as a resort, but by the 1890s, most of the business relocated to Cassville where a more reliable year-round trade could be had rather than the seasonal nature of business near the spring. It also probably didn’t help that Eureka Springs was just down the road.
Seven Star was another shortlived resort town in Barry County. Located a couple miles south of Thomas Hollow, in the 1880s a relatively large community sprang up around the healing Seven Star Spring, including hotels, drugstore, printing press, picture gallery, furniture store, and butcher shop. However, a series of floods in the 1880s eventually destroyed the burgeoning resort town, and it was never rebuilt.
Since we all want to live happier, longer lives, we’ll never stop searching for a cure for what ails us. But somehow, fresh ideas always seem more appealing than the old ways, even if the new way has been recycled from the old.
Drinking radium water is likely not riskier than consuming an energy drink. Do you really know what’s in either one?
Still, I reckon the new ways are good enough for me.
Jeremiah Buntin is a historian at the Barry County Museum. He may be reached at jbuntin@barrycomuseum. org.
